Tim Hecker // No Highs 2xLP/CD

This is the first full-length album in four years released in June 2023 by Tim Hecker, an ambient artist from Montreal, Canada, on the long-established American ambient label Kranky.

Contains 11 tracks of lyrical ambient and ambient noise.

Below is a commentary by the label.

"Canadian composer Tim Hecker's latest work serves as a beacon of anxiety against the current deluge of false-positive corporate ambient. Take it as a warning or as a promise. No Highs ’ does it: it’s music of tension and ambiguity, of purgatory and seasickness: the jagged anti-relaxant of the drug-era, rough-edged and undefined.

Morse code pulse programming flickers like a distress call, and a distant storm of strings, noise and low-end looms.The processed electronics shudder and shudder against the crackling voltages, mantric horns (including exquisite modal saxophone by Colin Stetson), and the pitch-shifting conglomeration of cathedral keys.I'm conscious of the ebb rather than the crescendo. Hecker cites "denial" as a muse of sorts.A sense of turmoil that is not exaggerated, a sense of bound ecstasy, an escape from escape.His antagonism is brusque yet seductive, devoid of resolution, and plunges the listener into a grayscale alchemy of magical disquiet. "

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Kranky:

"The latest by Canadian composer Tim Hecker serves as a beacon of unease against the deluge of false positive corporate ambient currently in vogue. Whether taken as warning or promise, No Highs delivers – this is music of austerity and ambiguity, purgatorial and seasick. A jagged anti-relaxant for our medicated age, rough-hewn and undefined.

Morse code pulse programming flickers like distress signals while a gathering storm of strings, noise, and low-end looms in the distance. Processed electronics shiver and shudder against pitch-shifting assemblages of crackling voltage, mantric horns (including exquisite modal sax by Colin Stetson) ), and cathedral keys. Throughout, the pieces both accrue and avoid drama, more attuned to undertow than crescendo. is an antagonism both brusque and beguiling, devoid of resolution, beckoning the listener ever deeper into its greyscale alchemies of magisterial disquiet."

Artist: Tim Hecker

Label: Kranky