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If a picture is worth a thousand words, then one of Tim Hecker's compositions is worth a thousand images. Unlike most rock or pop concerts, Hecker's featured performance Saturday night at the Southern Theater offered a solid hour of listening. No one sang along, no one danced. As his set began, Hecker motioned the stage manager to cut the Twilight Zone light effects and to just leave the audience in complete dark. All ears were trained on the electric emissions of the speakers. And what came out of the speakers let the mind's eye take flight.
The opportunity to hear Hecker perform live was a rare treat. The Canadian ambient musician teamed up with critically acclaimed Ben Frost to bring their unique sound to the Twin Cities. While each musician had their own showcase performances, each assisted the other during the respective shows. Frost appeared, barefoot, at the beginning and end of Hecker's show to add his own incidental phrases on guitar and piano to Hecker's larger compositions. While mixing and compiling their sounds, the two musicians moved like silent wraiths among their myriad wires, synthesizers, sound boards, and computers set upon a table propped up with paint cans.
But although the two musicians worked together with ease, their approaches to ambient music could not be more different. Frost, with his mentorship under renowned musician Brian Eno, has been known to create his pieces with a tortured meticulousness, wrapped in layers of compositional theory. Hecker, on the other hand, has admitted in interviews his penchant for improvisation. The music played was thus whatever Hecker felt like putting together. By no means did this lend a sloppy quality to Hecker's work, but rather, there was a sense of no-holds-barred, open imagination that made the listening experience more magical.
Opening with the same musical themes as his most recent album, An Imaginary Country, Hecker slowly built his onstage composition with sweeping crescendos that required earplugs in order to appreciate without physical pain. In the same way a jazz band will begin a song with a simple melody, only to layer it with improvised solos and variations, Hecker built his compositions centered on a simple theme--such as a repetitive beat or rising arpeggio. And although many themes came directly from tracks in Hecker's discography ("100 Years Ago" and "Borderlands" come to mind), the execution on stage was vastly different. Hecker constantly moved from laptop to MIDI keyboard to sound board creating new sounds out of only a few electrical elements.
The sound throbbed, it groaned, it rose to levels and volumes that cannot be reached by a dinky set of headphones when listening to Hecker's work at home. The bass reverberated so strongly that it could be felt pulsing inside the body. Evoking the outer space panoramas from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey while using electric distortion more commonly found in some albums by The Klaxons or Radiohead, Hecker wove the rush of airplane engines with percussive sounds similar to a hand hitting a microphone that never failed to evoke brilliant mental pictures.
Images of waterfalls and supernovas, of vaulted cathedrals and crashing waves would flash through the mind while Hecker's chords progressed through a sea of dissonant drones. There was a moment where the electric tones ascended, and with each step the sound rang out like a bell. The ascent was slow, almost reverent, as if marching upwards toward some sort of paradise. Just as the volume and the tones were at the top of the scale, Hecker replaced the metallic, electric buzz with the exultant phrases of an organ--thus completing the heavenly image.
Although the performance lasted little more than an hour, it felt as if the music had been played outside of space and time. Hecker's style and great capacity as a musician made for a captivating experience. Not only does he make music with his sound, Hecker paints pictures with it.
It just kind of hit me full force. Sitting on the bus, talking to a stranger, and that's how I introduced myself. It rolled off the tongue, and I realized it was the truth.
Not only does the job and the internship legitamize this claim, but the actual legwork too. I mean, what kind of person willingly waits for hours next to a bike rack hoping to find an interview if not a journalist? What kind of person carries their AP Stylebook with them everywhere if not a journalist? It's who I've become, somehow.
It's startling to look at the turn I've taken, at how the dream has changed in only a few years. I'm not sure what I'm after. This business is certainly more profitable than novel writing, and there are more positions than in literary translation... But I think I just latched on to something that I quickly became good at. Radio isn't easy, but it's something I can do well. I can make a name for myself. I don't want to be famous; I just want to be respected.
I can change the world. My East African Male story proved that. This is what I need to do.
But, yes, so my creative writing has suffered (especially fiction), but so it goes. There will be time to come back to that. Some day. Hopefully.
If the career starts now, there are some laws I have to lay down first. If change can come so easily, without even thinking about it, than I have to make sure there are things I won't, I can't, lose. Like swing dancing. And reading books. And cooking. And the Amigos. I can't lose these. There will always be time for these.
Somehow.
Somehow I've gotten here. With help, but on my own steam.
Where next?
]]>Seven new aeries have been spotted along the river between Dayton & Hastings. Ramsey County Parks officials attribute the rise in bald eagle population to the effectiveness of the 1972 Clean Water Act.
The Clean Water Act has improved the Mississippi River's fisheries, allowing eagle parents to provide more for their young.
Eagle aeries have been sighted closer and closer to urban areas. One is near the Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport, another along Interstate 694 near Fridley.
]]>The survivor had her license for only three weeks, according to The Pioneer Press. Minnesota state law prohibits young drivers who have had their license for less than six months to drive unaccompanied between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m., and also prohibit driving more than one passenger under the age of 20.
Police said that the vehicle driven by the survivor smelled of alcohol. The driver could face criminal charges.
]]>The announcement came after Greece's bond market took a sharp downturn, forcing Athens to accept the aid, which is equivalent to $53 billion, according to CNN.
The bailout money, EU officials said, will hopefully be dispersed as quickly as possible, but there are many critics of the disbursement. Germany, with the largest economy of the euro zone, was hesitant, but one German official said that saving Greece would be in Germany's national interest as well, since it saves the euro.
Other critics wonder at what the procedure will be for other economically failing countries like Portugal and Spain, if they should prove to default on loans also.
]]>The Chicago Tribune reports that the defense lawyers say that there is some pertinent information to the case that only the president and the former governor know. This information could possibly prove the governor innocent.
The filing of the subpoena request had much "classified" information redacted, but a "computer glitch" has allowed the full redaction to be posted on the Internet.
Security officials for the president have requested that a pre-recorded video of Obama's testimony be used in the case, rather than having the president present in the courtroom.
]]>The reporters used the EPA's searchable database in order to find that nearly two-thirds of Indiana companies with permits to create air pollutants had violated the act. The violations, after three years have still been left unresolved.
]]>UMPD plans to tighten security measures in response to last year's Dinkytown riot that occurred during the 2009 Spring Jam. Cars were set alight, underage drinking, and general unruliness cast a dismal light over this year's activities
The increased patrolling will include preemptive door-knocking to prevent underage drinking and to ensure students don't get too drunk, one of the main causes of the riot last year, reported MPRNewsQ.
]]>The sergeant had been inspecting another drunk driver who had driven into a pole. While speaking with the driver, the sergeant was struck by another speeding car, reported KARE 11 News.
The second driver sped away but was then apprehended a few blocks later by other police personnel. After a breathalyzer test, the driver blew a .248, more than three times the legal limit of blood alcohol content.
The officer who was struck suffered only minor injuries and was released Thursday morning.
]]>The new bill looks to curb risk-taking expenditures by large financial firms--the cause of the 2008 recession--and put such companies under the oversight of the Federal Reserve. In addition, the Secretary of the Treasury would be able to "take over any company that posed systemic risk to financial stability, and essentially force the company out of business."
But Republicans have rigidly opposed the bill. All 41 Republican senators signed a letter promising to filibuster once the bill hits the floor in the coming week, according to ABC News.
In response, President Obama and other leading Democrats like Sen. Harry Reid and Sen. Christopher Dodd have harshly admonished the Party of No for trying to halt the reform. Republicans have been accused of working in favor of Wall Street.
The impetus for the reform, reported ABC News, was the federal governments recent civil suit against Goldman Sachs for mortgage fraud.
]]>In his memo, Obama ordered that all hospitals that receive Medicaid or Medicare should adhere to his new policy, according to The L.A. Times.
"Every day across America, patients are denied the kindness and caring of a loved one at their sides -- whether in a sudden medical emergency or a prolonged hospital stay," Obama wrote. President Obama also noted that hospitals deny visitation to widows or widowers without children and people of religious orders when the patient has no relatives.
The memo marks a big step for the Obama administration in LGBT politics. Supporting the LGBT movement and giving more rights to homosexual couples was one of President Obama's platforms during his campaign and now, over a year into his presidency, he has been slow to act on the issue. But since January, President Obama has been looking to repeal the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy.