Customer Reviews

Harmony in Ultraviolet

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

We all knew that Tim Hecker had it in him--an A-plus after so many A-minuses, an album that fulfills all the promises of the respectively excellent Mirages and Radio Amor. Harmony's unified ambient suite is capable of releasing emotions that you never knew you had, laying the tension on thick and using the beatless format to pulsate, tug and spill over at just the right moments. Beneath the white noise decay and the frightening sound effects (scissors, helicopter blades) lies a deep core of sadness gripped by anxiety, and the unnerving paradox of extreme violence and ultimate serenity. Harmony in Ultraviolet is the soundtrack to the most cathartic 50 minutes of your life, and chronicles the longings of the heart more effectively than any piece of music in recent memory, ambient or otherwise.

The review by the San Fran guy's pretty much sum it up but I'll add this.

I often think of Hecker's sound as utter desolation, the last days of civilisation. I know in parts it can be uplifting (a few moments in Amour and Haunt Me especially) but for me it's the starkness and atmosphere that seperate it from anything else before.

Remember the Voyager space probe ? Travelling at million miles per day, 9 billion miles from the Sun and racing out of our solar system and into the infinite void of interstellar space ?

Well Harmony in Ultraviolet is it's soundtrack.

Imagine the most beautiful music in the world. Then with an old thrift store camera, take a super grainy snapshot of that music. Fold up the photo and place it in an envelope and mail it to an address that no longer exists. 20 years later, happen upon an old abandoned post office, and discover that letter unopened, but browned with age, remove the photo and place it in your pocket. Lose those pants on a camping trip, only to discover them the next summer, all wadded up in a corner, sprinkled with a years worth of dust and cobwebs. Wash the pants, and only afterwards discover the photo. Prop in up in the window of the cabin to dry, where it sits soaking up the sun for the whole summer. Right before you leave, grab the photo of the most beautiful music in the world and place it in your book to mark your place. Place the book back on your shelf and forget all about it. Move several times over the course of the next several years, finally unpacking a dusty old trunk filled with books. Leaf through several of them, when suddenly the most beautiful music in the world flutters to the floor, dusty and tattered, worn and nearly transparent. Finally, tear it up into tiny pieces and drop them one by one into the speaker of an antique victrola, wind it up and what comes out will be Tim Hecker's Harmony In Ultraviolet.

We often reference Hecker when reviewing records by other practitioners of a similar soundmaking process, but there's something so pure and organic about the way Hecker composes and creates, how he deftly assembles and degrades his sounds and songs and melodies. Managing to sound modern but antiquated at the same time, viewing the world through sleep filled eyes, everything soft and fuzzy, sometimes intense and ominous, sometimes even dark and downright scary, but always suffused with a shimmering radiant warmth, making all of his sounds glow from within. Each song a weather worn snapshot, frayed and dusty, comfortable and lived in sounding. It's a music that requires close listening, a subtly immersive sound, but once inside it, once the sound is all around you, only then can you pick out all of the details, hear the hidden melodies, only then can you let go, and get completely lost in Hecker's gorgeous world of mysterious sound. Some of the most beautiful music in the world indeed.

Quite simply, one of the best ambient works ever done. Tim Hecker provides a perfect collison between noise and drone, with all-but forgotten melody lurking beneath surface. The culmination of Hecker's previous works, this piece is all dreamscape with a scratchy, hypnotic vision where the contrast between noise and harmony sound as if it is no contrast at all, but inseparable partners on this intensely emotional voyage.

After hearing this CD, I immediately purchased all of Hecker's works. This is definitely the one where he has perfected his craft. Nearly as good, however, would be Mirages, and Haunt Me. If you like this one, be sure to pick up those two as well.

WOW! im so happy to have found this album! Just in time too as the wintry season is almost leaving us and these Harmonies in Ultraviolet really do fit that grey-sky over industrial wasteland vibe travelling from Manhattan down the Jersey Turnpike. While impressed with his previous efforts, I really found something.. lacking in them. Perhaps I had just caught Fennesz earlier and couldn't help a comparison. And this album has its comparisons as well, but what a tremendous production and editing feat this is. Harmony indeed. Standout tracks include 'Chimeras', 'Harmony in Blue I-IV', 'Dungeoneering', and everything in between. This is truly a 'full' album, where perhaps the independent parts won't provoke the same reaction as when it is heard in full. This is my pick for album of the year I just can't stop listening to this!

Thick, rich, muscular, dense, multilayered, inspiring, desolate... words don't do this minor masterpiece justice. One of the few dark ambient albums which not only rewards close attention, but reveals its nuances slowly after repeated listening. Highly recommended!

. This is a deep heady aural project of the highest grade.

At first the expressions are difficult to grasp and hold onto. I could not rise above its horizontal resonances. . . . As I familiarized myself with the tonality I began to appreciate the dimensions it presented.

An expression of subdued organic and somewhat uncomfortable electronic layers. A tonal ladder of serene yet tense combinations. Both consoling and frightening. Smooth drones uplifted by course electronica. These dark melancholic motifs prove to be a peculiar harmony indeed.

Nothing out there really sounds like this.This is a heavy ambient wine. It cannot be listened to casually. Because at that shallow level of appreciation it shall all go over your head.

The CD case is quite perplexing. Not some mysterious outer/inner space nebulous computer cloud. Rather an antiquidated memorial wall of photos of male soldiers.

First Tim Hecker album I've bought. I am very happy with it. There is a lot of variation despite being ambient/noise. Dungeoneering is probably the standout track (more intensity, faster paced) but I would not cherry pick it off this album because the other tracks are necessary to pull you in full circle.

I might try "Haunt Me Haunt Me Do It Again" next because the samples on youtube seem pretty good.