Earlier this year, Canadian experimental composer Tim Hecker released his sixth album, the superb Ravedeath, 1972. Dropped Pianos, Hecker’s latest record, isn’t a new recording per se. Instead, the nine untitled compositions found here are ostensibly taken from the Ravedeath sketchbook. But don’t think that you’re going to find any correlations between the two records; you wouldn’t know that these sketches formed the basis of what eventually was released. Instead of the krautrock flourishes of Ravedeath, the songs here are quite, gentle, and ambient; if anything, moments like “Sketch 1,” “Sketch 5,” and “Sketch 7” show that Hecker could easily pursue a path not unlike Harold Budd or Brian Eno. Only on “Sketch 6” does Hecker sound remotely like the Ravedeath composer. Dropped Piano may be a brief glimpse into a masterful artist’s sketchbook, but it is a worthwhile, beautiful, meaningful glimpse.
