Tim Hecker and Daniel Lopatin – 'Instrumental Tourist' review
As Oneohtrix Point Never, Daniel Lopatin intellectualises and warps old analogue synth lines into hitherto inconceivable shapes. Now, in collaboration with Tim Hecker, whose pedigree lies in drone music and releases on the post-rock juggernaut label Kranky, the same approach is applied to modern jazz and soundtrack music, distorting and abstracting it until its ingredients are only just recognisable enough to follow.
The result is an exercise in rich but majestically-paced disorientation that often feels entrancingly melancholy, but which lacks either the fluidity or the variation to fully engage the listener for the album’s entire hour. When the pair introduce harsh static and the occasional recurring motif to proceedings, the mood lifts – GRM Blue II is almost funky – but there’s no escaping the record’s domineering, downbeat intensity. Despite its name, Instrumental Tourist feels like one for sterner constitutions than those of mere visitors.
7/10
