I work with digital audio, which is like sculpting, a form of chiseling down metal or wood. And I take audio and move it back and forth between the analog and digital realms and work with it almost like a plastic art until it takes forms in different shapes. And I use those figurines that come out of that type of work.
Tim HeckerFor me it's the hypnotic simplistic reduction of hooks into some form of prayer wheel or something. I really appreciate people who can work in those quiet environments making really precious latticework like lace in a weaving but, for me, I like it a bit more hairy and like psychedelic Peruvian knits or something! You know what I mean? I go into fabric analogies, you know.
Tim HeckerI try to structure albums in a pattern, like in a way where there's a motif that runs throughout or some kind of conceit that informs it in a general way. Maybe it's in a harmonic key. I like to go metastructural sometimes, like look at more than the three-minute passage and how that interacts with other pieces. And I've been increasingly interested in false starts and fraudulent beginnings, and things that don't reach their implied conclusions. I take an album and I kind of start moving things around like Jenga.
Tim HeckerI definitely enjoy liturgical work and choral work from the 15th century and 16th century, but I play in churches with a bit of trepidation, and it's not something I enjoy because there are all these problems. It's an implication that you're part of the theological apparatus, like for atheists or something, and I don't like that. I like playing with the form, inhabiting the tropes of religious music without that promise of angels at the end. It can be awkward, you know?
Tim HeckerI'm really sensitive to the beginning of a motif or a phrase or something that's kind of the backbone or becomes kind of the spine that you grow muscle tissue onto. You know from that, if you have that good beginning, it's like everything that grows off it often has potential. Maybe I'm good at that early bit of recognition of pieces of potential. I'm not sure.
Tim Hecker