Tim Hecker

It happened back in December 2011: Tim Hecker played one of his breathtaking live sets in Milan for the first time, at Spazio O’. It was most likely on that occasion that, playing the accidental tourist, he visited the Duomo and took the photograph that would later become the artwork for his most surprising album – if not the outright masterpiece that an artist of sound like him – calling him a mere musician would be reductive, with all due respect to that boundless category – was always bound to deliver sooner or later.

So it happens that less than two years on, two of the most important players in Milan's live music scene cross paths: the Auditorium San Fedele series (“Tracce e percorsi acustici ed elettronici”), a cultural foundation active for over half a century, and the young guns of S/V/N (Savana), who for a couple of years now have been bringing the biggest names in contemporary electronic music to the city. Two entities that, truth be told, one might expect to see join forces for events like this almost naturally, yet in this case the reason for their meeting was the acousmonium: an imposing array of forty spatialized speakers set up in the main hall of San Fedele, a system that has previously accompanied screenings of, among others, Godfrey Reggio's landmark “Koyaanisqatsi”.

This time too, following the shows at Buka Club and the Museo della Scienza, S/V/N spotted the chance to pull off something extraordinary, for which the Jesuit foundation proved to be the ideal partner. A somewhat smaller Nexo rig thus became the means to officially present “Virgins” to the public, Hecker's latest effort and the summa of his glorious musical journey.

But the first part of the evening also featured two artists working in contemporary soundscaping: two tracks by American Barry Truax taken from his work “Islands”, centred on the varied sounds of nature near the ocean; and a long piece by Italy's own David Monacchi, “Stati d’acqua”, accompanied by visuals reacting live to the sound. A striking spectacle that hinted at the potential of the acoustic system set up for the night, one that would go on to reveal its full, unprecedented power during Hecker's performance.

It must be said straight away that this performance of “Virgins” saw sheer volume take precedence over the many crucial details that make the recent studio recording so unique. The sacred aura pervading certain tracks in particular – the “Virginal” and “Live Room” diptychs – rests on inserts of “dropped piano” and syncopated wind instruments, which resonate as if coming from somewhere else entirely, crypts forgotten by the world and laden with centuries of sonic memory. Hecker chose to sacrifice much of his exquisite work as a sound sculptor in order to submerge the San Fedele audience under an out-of-control electronic wave, both in the highs and through the woofers; yet this was no shapeless mass of indistinct drones, but rather the definitive monument to the melodic, almost neo-romantic core that has always set his work apart from everyone else's.

Perhaps not everyone appreciated this choice, or at least not to the same degree: but the prospect of such an impact must have convinced the artist to take the risk, with the sole certainty of having physically shaken the audience at this important show. Yet beyond individual reactions, one gets the impression that, already with the organ concert in Parma, Tim Hecker had been slowly – but quite consistently – building towards this sublime moment. There was also a distinct sense that, on this exact day, in this brief hour of majestic electronic cathedrals, the full greatness of one of the most defining musical arcs of this young – yet already so incredibly rich – third millennium had revealed itself. In the end, one can only hope that collaborations of this kind don't remain isolated occasions, but become common practice, one that could considerably enrich the cultural offerings of a city like Milan, now just a step away from the much-discussed Expo.

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