No Highs - Tim Hecker (2023)

Oh, good timing. A “beacon of unease” to soundtrack my morning of reading about how the fascist that some of my loved ones voted for has now started a war with Iran. Make America Checked and Balanced Again.

Hecker (o_O o_O) is no stranger around here. He’s one of the most important voices in modern composition, bringing together minimalist ideas with electronic ambient and a wildly adventurous spirit.

This one is a reaction against what he calls “false positive corporate ambient,” meaning (I take it) the deluge of bullshit lo-fi hip hop study beats you can get fed into your head non-stop without really being challenged to listen.

This is ambient in the sense that you don’t have to listen, but there’s a lot that unfolds before you if you do. Droning passages give way to sweeps of paranoid synth sounds and atmospheric swoons. There is beauty here, though it’s often embedded in dread.

Not an album to calm your nerves, but an important reminder that even the most abstract music doesn’t have to be a generic commodity.