Alien8 Recording
2003
Radio Amor
About This Album
Tim Hecker's first album for Mille Plateaux, Radio Amor, follows two excellent efforts for the relatively smaller yet similarly prestigious Substractif label, and accordingly consolidates that pair into his most inclusive and presentable recording yet. It merges the haunting majesty of his debut full-length, Haunt Me Haunt Me, Do It Again (2001), with the loose conceptual framework of his follow-up EP, My Love Is Rotten to the Core (2002), and does so without being quite as overbearing as those two releases may have felt to listeners interested in simply engaging music rather than far-fetched conception. There are thus two primary sides to Radio Amor: its sounds and concepts. The sonic palette Hecker draws from here is strikingly reminiscent of his previous work. Heavily manipulated waves of drone again clash and splash against one another, often doing so with near yet subtly off synchronicity in the right and left channels. The effect is slightly disorienting, and that's precisely the point, as Hecker's overall aesthetic seems centered upon an otherworldly style of sound manipulation meant to baffle even the most seasoned digital-music listeners. The conceptual framework he builds upon is likewise hazily vague, and no doubt purposefully so.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7)

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