Live Review: Tim Hecker, Spilt Silo

It’s with an intense whoosh of synthetic noise that Spilt Silo (aka Stew Schackne) silences the crowd and takes us on a lengthy excursion deep into experimental electronic and ambient music. Spilt Silo walks a fine line between intricately designed noise and something that might be recognised as music as he produces a sound that feels like he has switched on Howler’s booster and thruster rockets and is launching us into space. Once we have lift off, Spilt Silo starts to explore the cosmos as his set evolves into soundscapes that describe the alien and abstract. Looking intensely into the screen of his laptop and working a controller, Spilt Silo’s set feels like an ambient jam albeit within the constraints that working with a laptop would present to more improvisational flights of fancy. Spilt Silo does indulge in long, monotonous passages of ambient nothingness that leave us feeling abandoned on lifeless, frozen tundra on a distant planet a long way from home. The set comes to an abrupt end and we’re instantly brought back to a more earthly reality.

The expectant crowd, comprised mainly of chin-stroking men, discuss synthesisers, music and the last time they saw Tim Hecker play at some fashionable club in Europe. Hecker arrives to play in a smoke machine-induced hazy darkness. The only light coming off the stage is the glow from his machines and laptop until one dude in the front row briefly interrupts the ambience Hecker creates when he takes a photo and his flash goes off. Hecker’s take on ambient music is dark, brooding and sinister. His recordings always seem to come alive when listened to at maximum volume and, so much more than merely creating background music, Hecker’s dark sonics build terrifyingly haunting, hypnotic soundscapes. Hecker wields sound like a weapon. Deep, rich bass sounds have everything in the room vibrating with intensity. The PA is commanded to spasmodically push air onto us in time with the undulating rhythms. Dense layers of static, industrial drones and synth noise are layered to create melodies that exist like illusory moiré patterns. It feels like the most punishing, old-school techno without the shuddering beats, but there is calm in the eye of the storm and many punters stand motionless, with their eyes closed as if entering a meditative headspace. Intense and austere, Hecker’s set only goes for 40 minutes, but he somehow warps the very fabric of time and space because it feels as though he plays for much longer. Hecker anonymously leaves the stage, but not before bowing. And then, by the power invested in him, he signals the sign of the cross and blesses the appreciative crowd.