Tim Hecker^CA

Over 18 years, seven solo albums and numerous sound installations and commissioned performance works, Montréal musician and sound artist Tim Hecker has turned “ambient noise” on its head, crafting his own recognizable style of abstract electronic music with profound emotional resonance – from the bleak yet all-encompassing soundscapes of his 2004 Mirages (on Alien8) and 2006’s Harmony in Ultraviolet (on Kranky) to more recent explorations of acoustic sound gone digitally wild on his 2011 album Ravedeath 1972 and his latest, Virgins.

Resistant to genre, his compositions layer synthesized glitch and static over sustained piano chords, and put dissonance and orchestral harmony on equal footing. Live, Hecker plays his compositions loud and preferably with the lights out; never sacrificing clarity, his sonic narratives building to transcendent crescendos or rumbling into wave after wave of body-shaking bass. For EM15, Hecker introduces a new level of intensity to his live performance, turning a concert hall into a darkened, fog-filled, disorienting space where sound completely overwhelms the senses.