Tim Hecker and Blanck Mass in conversation
Ahead of appearances at Glasgow’s newest (and perhaps boldest) festival Restless Natives, The Skinny listens in as two of the headline acts talk inspiration, application, and the urge for amusement when touring.
“The last time I played Glasgow, I can’t remember the name of the venue but I smoked it out pretty hard,” Tim Hecker playfully admits down the line from Los Angeles. “If the conditions permit, I’ll do that again, I guess.”
“I don’t know if smoking out a church is something that’s possible here,” replies Ben Power, one half of Fuck Buttons, otherwise known as Blanck Mass. “But I hope so.”
No, this isn't the electro pioneers discussing ecumenical matters as if in a Father Ted skit, but the Restless Natives festival – billed as seven days of music, film, art, food, drink (and much more), firing-up the cultural peccadillos of Glasgow’s East End. And in particular an evening of cerebral, synth-based immersion when the US-based Canadian and the Englishman settled in Scotland share the bill at the parish church of Saint Luke’s (or, to be more accurate, the venue at the former parish church of St Luke’s, just in case any passing members of the Church of Scotland General Assembly become suddenly concerned).
Fresh from releasing latest album Love Streams – described by The Skinny as “suggestive of a dichotomy between the emotionally pure and the technologically stark” – Hecker’s about to head to LAX and the connecting flights that’ll see him sonically challenge audiences at venues across Europe. Power, too, hasn’t exactly been workshy of late, what with work progressing on the next Blanck Mass album, a recent American tour supplemented with festival dates in both Croatia and Austria… and have we mentioned Fuck Buttons?
“New Fuck Buttons material; we’re at the initial planning of it,” Ben confirms, photographic evidence of Ben and Andrew Hung surrounded by banks of equipment having emerged on social media. “We actually have no idea where it’s going to go this time. But Andy came up to me for a few days, and we’re trying to generate a vibe – of some description. We’ll see how long it takes, but we’ve both made the initial steps to doing it.”
The creative process
Recording, playing live, hectic itineraries – these are obvious themes for Tim and Ben to bond over. But there’s a creative coalescence, too; they may work on different sides of the Atlantic, but the somewhat peripatetic nature of their respective back stories – Vancouver-born Hecker was most recently based in Montreal, while he regularly spends time sculpting his widescreen ambient in Reykjavik – has helped to flavour both Love Streams as well as Power’s 2015 LP Dumb Flesh. Not that Hecker has engaged with the former of late.
“I haven’t listened to it myself for about five months,” Hecker says, confessing.
“But that’s a good thing to do, isn’t it?” Power adds. “To give yourself a little bit of space before you go out to play it live?”
“I think it’s good to forget what you’ve done, so that you can kind of repeat the same mistakes over again, or like try and do something you’ve felt before.” And they both laugh. Power continues: “It is a nice way of doing it, I’d say. One thing I like about it is that you can really get a sense of the spectrum that you’re in on this record. Was it primarily recorded in Iceland?”
“A lot of it was written in Montreal and LA.”
“So it’s a mixture of different spaces?”
“For sure," says Hecker. "And some of those are fake, some of those are real, but it was definitely artistically imagined.”
Power responds: “It’s quite interesting, what you said about the spacing. The combination of different spaces, of these getting implemented into the recording. I kind of did a similar thing with Dumb Flesh; I was moving around quite a lot. It started off in London, next it moved to a remote attic space that had no natural light at all. Then the last mixing session that I did was when I moved up to Scotland. It changed dramatically from each space change to the next.”
Similarities and differences
Which leads the conversation toward to the creative process, and the extent to which a commonality between the two exists, be it via texture or execution. One aesthetic is unlikely to be confused with the another’s – Power’s work leans towards an acerbic channelling of sound, subverting notions of drone and synth-pop motif, Hecker’s back catalogue hinting at the contemplative persuasion of electronica, challenging cinematic interpretations on a number of terms – yet listening to them talk there’s certainly a sense of kindred spirits, particularly when it comes to a starting point.
“I don’t necessarily see how Tim works," Power says, "but I’d say that definitely in regards to approach. There’s certainly some kind of kinship.”
“Yeah,” Tim agrees. “Definitely. We just get a synth and play it with pre-set #1 and add layers to that. It’s a pretty rich process.”
Power says: “I find that the initial pre-set you mention, it could be almost anything, the levels of manipulation that it goes through to get something completely different when it comes out of the other end. Something completely unique. And I guess it depends upon where your headspace is.”
The approach to live performance
In a similar fashion, both artists share an appreciation of the synergy between the audio and the visual when playing live.
Hecker says: “It’s obviously important to do something that has impact and isn’t just reiterations of recorded studio material. It’s part of the evolution of how that happens, and I’ve tried a million different ways of doing that, but for me it’s a powerful approach to play around with the intensity with the recorded material.”
“I think it’s quite important to cover all aspects, especially in the live situation,” Ben adds. “I want to keep myself as entertained as the next person…”
“Boredom’s part of that, right? Having decided to get out of bed and do it.”
“It goes back to that fact that right now I’m in the midst of quite a big tour; I’m at home at the moment, but I’m playing all kinds of places, which is quite interesting – it’s something that I haven’t done for a long time. It almost feels like I really need to be on top of that, but boredom is quite a factor when you’re doing something like that.”
“You’ve got to find a way to amuse yourself to make it special, at least to yourself, and that hopefully translates to people.”
Amusement being an interesting reference, considering that the depth of sound each conjures is stimulation far in advance of smile-inducing; soul-rattling might be a more apt description. Tim has a flight to get ready for. Ben, too. Two artists, pinging across the skies, their music smoking out churches (and more besides).
Tim Hecker and Blanck Mass play St Lukes, Glasgow on 15 May, as part of Restless Natives festival which runs from 9-15 May at venues across Glasgow's East End.