ALBUM REVIEW: Tim Hecker – No Highs

Kranky

Released: 07.04.23

Intended as a riposte to ‘the deluge of false positive capitalist ambient currently in vogue’, Tim Hecker’s latest is unsettling stuff even by his own standards. From the disorientating, lurching distortion of Reich-style minimalism on opener Monotony to the watery, vaguely nauseating shimmer of the closer 50 minutes later, No Highs employs a lot of the tropes used in the ambient/drone he’s rejecting but subtly fucks with them, making it more chilling than chill-out.

At times this album genuinely made me feel unwell. This is bad trip drone, a sickly subversion of all that polite New Age crap. Lotus Light is a fine example – an insistent, Cluster-like motif soon goes awry, all seasick surges and physically affecting low end assaults. I enjoyed it. I think.