| Virgins | ||||
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | October 14, 2013 | |||
| Recorded | 2012 | |||
| Studio | Greenhouse Studios (Reykjavík, Iceland) Avast! Recording Company (Seattle, Washington) EMPAC (Troy, New York) | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 48:46 | |||
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| Tim Hecker chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Virgins | ||||
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Virgins is the seventh studio album by Canadian electronic musician Tim Hecker, released on October 14, 2013 by Kranky and Paper Bag Records. [1] [2]
Virgins was recorded during three periods in 2012, mostly in Reykjavik, Montreal and Seattle, using ensembles in live performance. A statement on Hecker's Bandcamp page elaborates: "The sound palette of this work is wider, almost 'percussive' and tighter sounding than previous works. While this album remains committed to a painterly form of musical abstraction, it is also a record of restrained composition recorded live primarily in intimate studio rooms. This record employs woodwinds, piano and synthesizers towards an effort at doing what digital music does not do naturally—making music that is out of time, out of tune and out of phase." [3]
The image on the album cover is a reference to a famous image of Abdou Hussain Saad Faleh being tortured by members of the United States Army at Abu Ghraib Prison in 2003.
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AnyDecentMusic? | 8.1/10 [4] |
| Metacritic | 87/100 [5] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [6] |
| The A.V. Club | A− [7] |
| Mojo | [8] |
| MusicOMH |  [9] |
| NME | 8/10 [10] |
| Pitchfork | 8.3/10 [11] |
| Q | [12] |
| Resident Advisor | 4.0/5 [13] |
| Spin | 9/10 [14] |
| Uncut | 8/10 [15] |
Virgins received widespread critical acclaim upon its release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 87, based on 26 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim", and becoming Hecker's highest scoring album on the site. [5]
Mike Powell of Pitchfork praised the album, stating, "This is music that benefits from being heard loud and/or on headphones in the same way couches are best experienced by actually sitting down in them instead of just brushing your fingers against the upholstery as you leave the room. Like a lot of Ben Frost’s albums (or something like Swans’ The Seer ), Virgins feels possessed by the idea that no advancements in society or technology will ever shake our primal reactions to fear, wonder, awe and what in a more naïve era used to be called the sublime. And while it’s a fallacy to think that hyperseriousness is the only way to strike people at their core, it’s still inspiring to hear an artist—especially one who started out as mellow as Hecker—double down and make a statement so confrontational. Once haunted, now he’s the one who haunts." [11]
Philip Sherburne of Spin gave the album a favorable review, stating, "Hecker's abstractions have never been more expressive than they are on Virgins, and his containers have never been more fraught. His main compositional principle might have come from the late philosopher Marshall Berman: All that is solid melts into air. There’s an exhilarating bleakness at the center of Virgins — the hollow at the heart of all things, nibbling inexorably away." [14]
Virgins was a longlisted nominee for the 2014 Polaris Music Prize. [16] The album placed fifth in The Wire magazine's annual critics' poll. [17]
All tracks are written by Tim Hecker
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Prism" | 2:53 |
| 2. | "Virginal I" | 6:16 |
| 3. | "Radiance" | 3:22 |
| 4. | "Live Room" | 7:02 |
| 5. | "Live Room Out" | 2:37 |
| 6. | "Virginal II" | 5:23 |
| 7. | "Black Refraction" | 3:33 |
| 8. | "Incense at Abu Ghraib" | 1:53 |
| 9. | "Amps, Drugs, Harmonium" | 3:03 |
| 10. | "Stigmata I" | 2:18 |
| 11. | "Stigmata II" | 3:56 |
| 12. | "Stab Variation" | 6:30 |
| Total length: | 48:46 | |
Kranky is an American independent record label in Chicago, Illinois. It was started in 1993 by Bruce Adams and Joel Leoschke. It houses predominantly experimental music artists, often branching into or inspired by ambient, rock, electronic or psychedelic music. Their first release was Labradford's 1993 debut album Prazision. Adams left the label in 2006, after which Leoschke continued running it, with the help of Brian Foote of Kranky band Nudge.
Bowery Electric was an American band formed in New York in 1993 by Lawrence Chandler and Martha Schwendener. They released three albums between 1995 and 2000, including the critically praised Beat (1996).
Tim Hecker is a Canadian electronic musician, producer, composer, and sound artist. His work, spanning albums such as Harmony in Ultraviolet (2006), Ravedeath, 1972 (2011) and Virgins (2013), has been widely critically acclaimed. He has released eleven albums and a number of EPs in addition to a number of film scores and collaborations with artists such as Arca, Ben Frost, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Daniel Lopatin, and Aidan Baker.
Belong is an American experimental music duo composed of Turk Dietrich and Michael Jones. The group formed in New Orleans in 2002. Their debut album, October Language, was recorded in 2004 and released in 2006. The duo's sound blends ambient styles, with a focus on guitar textures. Reviews made comparisons to current electronica artists like Fennesz and Tim Hecker, as well as the early 1990s shoegazing sound attributed to bands such as My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus and Mary Chain. Guitars and synthesizers are run through various effects to produce the band's sound.
Ben Frost is an Australian-born musician, composer, record producer, sound designer and director based in Reykjavík, Iceland as of 2014.
Loscil is the electronic/ambient music project of Scott Morgan from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Morgan launched the project in Vancouver in 1998 while a member of the multimedia collective Multiplex, which curated audiovisual events at an underground cinema called The Blinding Light. The name Loscil is taken from the "looping oscillator" function (loscil) in Csound.
Harmony in Ultraviolet is the fourth studio album by Canadian electronic music musician Tim Hecker, released on October 16, 2006, on Kranky.
Young Galaxy is a Canadian indie pop/dream pop band formed in 2005 in Vancouver, whose members are husband and wife, Stephen Ramsay and Catherine McCandless.
An Imaginary Country is the fifth studio album by Canadian electronic music musician Tim Hecker, released on March 10, 2009, by Kranky. The album is available on either CD or 2×LP.
Colin Stetson is an American saxophonist, multireedist, and composer based in Montreal. He is best known as a regular collaborator of the indie rock acts Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, Bell Orchestre, and Ex Eye. In addition to saxophone, he plays clarinet, bass clarinet, French horn, flute, and cornet.
PS I Love You are a Canadian indie rock duo based in Kingston, Ontario, consisting of Paul Saulnier on vocals/guitar/bass pedals and Benjamin Nelson on drums. The band is signed to Canadian independent record label Paper Bag Records. The band is known for its forceful themes, guitar effects, and loud percussion.
Archer on the Beach is an EP by Destroyer released in November 2010, on 12" Vinyl.
Ravedeath, 1972 is the sixth studio album by Canadian electronic music musician Tim Hecker, released on February 14, 2011, by Kranky. The album was recorded primarily in Frikirkjan Church, Reykjavík, by Ben Frost. It makes prominent use of pipe organ, and was described by Hecker as "a hybrid of a studio and a live record." It received universal acclaim from critics, with many reviewers acknowledging the album as Hecker's finest.
Majical Cloudz was a Canadian music group from Montreal consisting of singer-songwriter Devon Welsh and Matt Otto. The group disbanded in March 2016.
Ruins is the tenth studio album by American musician Liz Harris under the stage name Grouper. It was released in the United States on October 31, 2014 on Kranky.
Love Streams is the eighth studio album by Canadian electronic music musician Tim Hecker, released on April 8, 2016 on 4AD and Paper Bag Records. The album was recorded throughout 2014 and 2015 at Greenhouse Studios in Reykjavík, Iceland, where parts of Hecker's last two albums Virgins (2013) and Ravedeath, 1972 (2011) were recorded.
Konoyo is the ninth studio album by Canadian electronic music musician Tim Hecker, released on September 28, 2018 on Kranky and Sunblind Music. A majority of the album was made from Hecker's visits to Japan, where he worked with a gagaku ensemble, Tokyo Gakuso, in Jiunzan Mandala-Temple Kanzouin on the outskirts of Tokyo.
Anoyo is the tenth studio album by Canadian musician Tim Hecker. It was released on May 10, 2019 under Kranky.
No Highs is the eleventh studio album by Canadian ambient musician Tim Hecker, released on April 7, 2023, via Kranky.
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