Barrie’s Big Best-of 2006 List: Favourite Songs, #2

2. Tim Hecker - Dungeoneering (from "Harmony in Ultraviolet")A rotating, cyclical machine sound, full of life but cold as death. This is the sound that power pylons make on cold winter nights, as they sing to each other songs about high-frequency oscillation and its effects upon snowflakes. Industrial yard lights spire up into the frozen sky, shimmering a quiet hymn to the groaning aurora borealis above. As the pylons reverberate, their cyclical hum rolls lower and lower, shaking the ground, loosening the frost. From the air they pull sounds of the humans, shortwave drift and CB static, and mix it all into the root hum of the world. Miles away, a power conduit cutting through a remote forest breathes, expanding the cutline like a chest.No one sees it.No one can hear it.But somehow Tim Hecker can record it.