Tim Hecker And Daniel Lopatin - Instrumental Tourist

The unholy alliance of Canadian Tim Hecker and Oneohtrix Point Never’s Daniel Lopatin is a dissonant match made in hell. Both have become increasingly visible practitioners of drone smeared in hiss and distortion, almost like the sound of ailing machines gasping for breath. In this regard, ‘Instrumental Tourist’ is an ideal collaboration; Hecker’s constant interference always threatening to overtake – but never quite doing so – Lopatin’s bottom end sound waves.

The album is almost entirely improvised and scales greatness on a number of occasions – ‘Scene From A French Zoo’ is elegant and deeply ambient while the two tracks entitled ‘GRM Blue’ achieve and maintain a melodic harmony which sounds positively extreme in the company. But the overriding feeling is one of gradual disintegration giving way to atrophy; the improv becoming listless and incidental by album closer ‘Vaccination No.2’. Still, there are enough fragments of warped interference to ensure this is a worthy collaboration albeit one which doesn’t entirely muscle up to the canon of its individual progenitors.