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When I interviewed sound artist Tim Hecker recently, I asked about his live show. Itâs something I donât normally do, because YouTube can usually answer such queries for me. But because he's an artist who doesnât perform that often and who straddles the line between the avant-garde and âconventionalâ pop music worlds, I wanted to know what to expect of his show at the Time-Based Art Festival, particularly from a visual standpoint. He told me to expect nothing.
"You're probably looking at a computer right now, or probably were two minutes ago, and if not that, your phone. I was just working on my screen, making music," Hecker said. "And for me, a concert is a break from that despotism of the eye. I'm a composer, and I resolutely focus on that."
He wasn't kidding.
In a standing-room-only Lincoln Hall, Hecker emerged in near-total darkness, and darkness is where he remained. There was no light show, no video projectionsâonly the pale glow of the equipment spread out on the table in front of him and vague wisps of artificial fog drifting across the stage. Heâs right about that âdespotism of the eyeâ thing: As his set began, with low-rumbling bass and a collage of musique concrete clicks and scrapes, I found myself searching for something to focus my gaze on, eventually settling on the red POWER light of the amp positioned to his left.
After a while, though, itâs hard to say if I was really âlookingâ at anything at all. Without any visual distractions, Heckerâs music indeed evolves into an all-consuming vortex. While âambient musicâ is the easiest umbrella to place him under, itâs hardly an accurate descriptor of what he does. First of all, heâs too damn loud: Thereâs a physicality to his work, especially live, that rivals any black-metal band. (Good thing PICA handed out earplugs at the door, or I imagine the more uninitiated patrons wouldâve thrown in the towel early.) The hourlong composition he unfurled here was less a drifting cloud than a roiling monsoon, a churning wall of jumbled soundsâoboe, piano, pipe organ, chimes, digital ephemera, harmonic patternsâexpelled from his laptop with the force of a jet engine. But it wasnât just a random splatter of noise, either. There were movements: Every few minutes, the constant drone of sub-bass would dissipate, and a new motif would emerge from the quietude. The piece had shape and intent, even if the precise form was determined by the listenerâs imagination. Hecker has compared his creative process to a Picasso painting by way of Jenga, but the finished product is a sonic Rorschach test. At some point, I swear I heard a mangled interpolation of the â90s Chicago Bulls theme in there, but that couldnât possibly be true.
I hesitate to call the experience of witnessing Hecker live âmeditativeâ: Thereâs too much going on to provide the detachment required of transcendence. But he did make good on his promise to overcome the tyranny of vision: For an hour, I was immersed deep enough in sheer sound that whenever someone left the room, cracking the exit and allowing a brief sliver of light to enter, it registered as a jarring intrusion. Hecker, for his part, was never more than a silhouette, even after the music ended. As the crowd stood to applaud, he stepped to the front of the stage, barely illuminated by the faint stage lights, then disappeared completely back into the shadows.
WWeek 2015