You could apply Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hours-of- practice theory to Tim Hecker’s art of sound design.

A 15-year run of releases has seen the Canadian producer grow in confidence when it comes to experimental electronic music and, especially, the business of marking out his own trademark lines.

Hecker says his eighth album was influenced by medieval choral scores and liturgical aesthestics, but it is the manner in which the music constantly shifts and moves that is the real takeaway.

He can do ethereal ambience (the hazy Music of the Air) and then produce splatters of intense, visceral and stunning noise such as on Live Leak Instrumental.

This sonic yin and yang is perfect throughout, Hecker moving across the dials to keep both sides of this musical spectrum in an off-kilter version of sweet harmony. sunblind.net