Tim Hecker

Tim Hecker

Tim Hecker is an ambient, drone, electronic and experimental musician and sound artist from Vancouver, Canada, born in 1974. He is based in Los Angeles and Montreal.

Career

Hecker first records as Jetone, under which he releases three albums and performs DJ sets, with an early focus on techno. By 2001 he grows dissatisfied with that project and begins releasing music under his own name. His first album under his own name, Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again, appears in 2001 on Alien8 and draws on abstract sound collage. In 2006 he moves to Kranky for Harmony in Ultraviolet, and later joins 4AD, where he releases his eighth album in 2016.

Hecker releases eight albums and a number of EPs under his own name. Among the best known are Harmony in Ultraviolet and Ravedeath, 1972. His work often uses pipe organ sounds that are digitally processed and distorted, and his live performances involve improvised manipulation of organ sounds with wide shifts in volume.

Collaborations and related work

Hecker collaborates with Ben Frost, Daniel Lopatin, Aidan Baker, Johann Johannsson, Kara-Lis Coverdale, Grimur Helgason, Christof Migone and Martin Tétreault. He also tours with Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Sigur Rós, records with Fly Pan Am, and contributes remixes to other artists including Isis. He occasionally makes sound installations and works with visual artists including Stan Douglas and Charles Stankievech.

For Ravedeath, 1972, Hecker travels to Iceland and records parts in a church with Ben Frost. In 2012 he works with Daniel Lopatin on an improvisatory project that becomes Instrumental Tourist. For Love Streams, he gathers material in Reykjavik across 2014 and 2015, with the album shaped in part by 15th-century choral works by Josquin des Prez. He also works with Ben Frost, Steve Goodman, Piotr Jakubowicz, Marcel Weber and Manuel Sepulveda on Unsound Festival’s installation Ephemera.

Other activity

Hecker is born in Vancouver and grows up with an interest in music as the son of two art teachers. He moves to Montreal in 1998 to study at Concordia University. After his studies, he works as a political analyst for the Canadian Government. He later enrols at McGill University for a PhD, with a thesis on urban noise that is published in 2014, and also lectures in sound culture in the Art History and Communications department.

Hecker composes the score for The Free World, which is selected for the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 2016. His later album No Highs appears in 2023.