Review
If Baudelaire had been a composer of ambient soundscapes rather than a poet of decay, he might well have aspired to create something akin to "An Imaginary Country." Released in 2009, this album marks a pivotal shift in Tim Hecker’s oeuvre, where he strips down his complexity into shorter, more finely honed pieces, each sketching out a unique region of his ethereal realm. It's a meticulous cartography of sound, from the ebbing tides of "The Inner Shore" to the spectral choruses of "Utropics," all rendered in the kind of synth-laden, electronic tapestry that practically demands you take up a Jónsi headpiece and just disappear into the textures.
Pay particular attention to "Borderlands," the album's arguable centerpiece. With its twinkling synths and gentle swirls of organic noise, it manages to sound both astoundingly unpolished and heartbreakingly intricate, like something composed by Ravel if he’d had a copy of Ableton. There's a poignant, almost wistful ache running through tracks like "Paragon Point," reminiscent of sunsets that only exist in half-remembered dreams. The critics, bless their cotton socks, collectively nodded in approval, doling out an average Metacritic score of 79, which is the ambient equivalent of a Roman triumph. In the end, "An Imaginary Country" might just be a Gruyère—distinct yet subtly complex, with each listen revealing another layer of its spectral beauty. - Atticus
