The first thing that comes to mind when considering Tim Hecker's work is his sense of scale. The Montreal-based drone composer has, over the course of the decade, built oceans of ambient noise capable of submerging his listener. His last album, 2006's Harmony in Ultraviolet, took this large-canvas technique to its logical end, so for his latest project, Hecker focuses instead on shorter individual pieces-- albeit with the same deliberateness and meticulous detail we've come to expect from him.
An Imaginary Country is, as its title suggests, an otherworldly landscape. Serving as our tour guide, Hecker uses each track to dream up one of its distinct regions, necessitating his more tightly focused approach. Take this journey with Hecker and you'll be introduced to the coastal tide ebb and flow on "The Inner Shore", the track's synths inhaling and exhaling to mirror the current's natural rhythm. On "A Stop at the Chord Cascades", a wall of descending chimes recalls the titular waterfall. And while there isn't much human life on this predominantly instrumental voyage, "Utropics" brings you closest to Hecker's imagined natives: A choir of haunted voices far off in the distance. Hecker is able to achieve this transportive quality because he paints these portraits in painstaking three-dimensional detail; the music is strikingly colorful. That said, An Imaginary Country isn't purely concept-driven or a kind of ambient-techno pop-up book. Like all worthwhile atmospheric music, there's a sense of choose-your-own-adventure here that allows the listener to build his own interpretations.
Alongside his more vivid storytelling, Hecker also wisely brings a broadened emotional palette to the record. A primary criticism of his prior work was that, while gorgeous and immense, his compositions often came across as studied and technical to the point of feeling impersonal. (See Harmony in Ultraviolet's academic "Harmony in Blue" suite.) With An Imaginary Country, though, Hecker appears willing to address those concerns and more eager to convey drama. On "Paragon Point", he juxtaposes dissonant shoegaze chords with feathery choral synths to create a poignant, hopeful heartache. Like stepping into the sunlight after a long, depressive stretch indoors, the song expresses regret at time lost but also a sense of optimism for a new day.
Together with these displays of deeper sentiment, Hecker also showcases here a capacity for coaxing natural textures out of his electronic arrangements. Album centerpiece "Borderlands" demonstrates it best, where he establishes a plane of twinkling, piano-like synths and lets gentle gusts of organic noise drift above it. The digitally rendered effect feels remarkably untreated, somehow indistinguishable from the earthly gust of wind it mimics. This naturalism, combined with Hecker's sense of fantasy and mirage, is part of what makes the album such a satisfying listen. Most impressive, though, is that Hecker has built for us this make-believe area to inhabit, to explore with him. While there's a bit less room in this space than those he's constructed before, it's still very much an achievement, and one to be celebrated.
