Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972

Like ice skating through a never-ending wall of fog, Tim Hecker’s 2011 classic ambient album is both graceful and foreboding in nature. This record seems to move in a different way from what came before and after in his discography, but seems to fit between a lot of the harshness and deep emotional crevasses explored on Harmony in Ultraviolet, and allusions to the destruction of music on Virgins. I’ve always found this album impenetrable in comparison, where every growling drone or screeching lead sounded almost unrecognisable - like a spirit seeping it’s way out of Ableton. It’s always hard to imagine what the source material of each piece is, and can be overwhelming in its sense of oblivion it conveys, but always if you listen deep enough, there’ll be a beautiful, soothing melody or harmonic structure to latch onto. Those are the most special moments for me. This album picks up in emotion in its middle portion with some truly gut-wrenching songs that feel like you’re having your heart pulled out of your chest, but is top and tailed with stretches of freezing, barren soundscapes. With falling pianos at the end of the last piece that truly exemplify its cover, this is Hecker at his most apocalyptic and hopeless.

KEY TRACK: Analog Paralysis, 1978 - I can categorically say that this is one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard. The whole piece seems to be falling and frozen in time, like the life is being sucked out of the grand piano. It’s bloody depressing and not always something I want to hear, but it really hits when I do.