Biography
Florian Hecker’s solo output ranks among the most elusive and finely shaded examples of computer music to emerge from the circle of artists tied to Vienna’s Mego imprint. Like Peter Rehberg, Christian Fennesz, and Farmers Manual, he treats the computer as an instrument for devising fresh compositional methods, discarding conventional forms in favor of unexpected timbres and textures generated almost entirely through digital processes.
Born in Augsburg, Germany, in 1975, Hecker has appeared live alongside those same figures as well as Tony Conrad, Gerhard Potuznik, Ramon Bauer, and Jim O’Rourke. His debut solo recording, the 1998 Mego CD IT ISO161975, offered an indistinct swirl of digital manipulation and stood as one of the label’s most cryptic and understated entries.
In 1999 he contributed [OT] xackpy breakpoint to the Or label’s Made to Order CD-R series; the same label had issued Farmers Manual’s Explorers_We the previous year. The Or disc revisited material from the Mego release while introducing greater motion and vitality. Hecker also belongs to cd_slopper, a duo formed with Oswald Berthold of Farmers Manual. Sun Pandämonium, issued in 2003, earned an award of distinction at that year’s Prix Ars Electronica. In 2006, Recordings for Rephlex appeared on the Rephlex label.
Subsequent years found him engaged in continuous recording and performance, frequently presenting sound installations in galleries, museums, and non-traditional spaces. His palette expanded to incorporate noise, techno, and musique concrète. Among the notable entries in his extensive catalog are several joint projects with Russell Haswell, among them the 2007 album Blackest Ever Black, various releases on Warp, and a 2008 remix of kosmische pioneers Popol Vuh.
Hecker collaborated with conceptual artist Cerith Wyn Evans on the experimental opera No Day No Night, presented at the 2009 Venice Biennale. Work with Iranian philosopher Reza Negarestani yielded a series of recordings, among them Chimerization in 2012 and the dense, skittering electronics of Articulação in 2014. Their third joint effort, A Script for Machine Synthesis, followed in 2017. Inspection II, an additional examination of computational methods for analysis and re-synthesis, surfaced in 2019. Statistique Synthétique appeared in 2021 as one half of a split LP with Okkyung Lee on Portraits GRM.
Born in Augsburg, Germany, in 1975, Hecker has appeared live alongside those same figures as well as Tony Conrad, Gerhard Potuznik, Ramon Bauer, and Jim O’Rourke. His debut solo recording, the 1998 Mego CD IT ISO161975, offered an indistinct swirl of digital manipulation and stood as one of the label’s most cryptic and understated entries.
In 1999 he contributed [OT] xackpy breakpoint to the Or label’s Made to Order CD-R series; the same label had issued Farmers Manual’s Explorers_We the previous year. The Or disc revisited material from the Mego release while introducing greater motion and vitality. Hecker also belongs to cd_slopper, a duo formed with Oswald Berthold of Farmers Manual. Sun Pandämonium, issued in 2003, earned an award of distinction at that year’s Prix Ars Electronica. In 2006, Recordings for Rephlex appeared on the Rephlex label.
Subsequent years found him engaged in continuous recording and performance, frequently presenting sound installations in galleries, museums, and non-traditional spaces. His palette expanded to incorporate noise, techno, and musique concrète. Among the notable entries in his extensive catalog are several joint projects with Russell Haswell, among them the 2007 album Blackest Ever Black, various releases on Warp, and a 2008 remix of kosmische pioneers Popol Vuh.
Hecker collaborated with conceptual artist Cerith Wyn Evans on the experimental opera No Day No Night, presented at the 2009 Venice Biennale. Work with Iranian philosopher Reza Negarestani yielded a series of recordings, among them Chimerization in 2012 and the dense, skittering electronics of Articulação in 2014. Their third joint effort, A Script for Machine Synthesis, followed in 2017. Inspection II, an additional examination of computational methods for analysis and re-synthesis, surfaced in 2019. Statistique Synthétique appeared in 2021 as one half of a split LP with Okkyung Lee on Portraits GRM.
Albums
UPIC Diffusion Session #23
2025
Statistique Synthétique
2020
Inspection II
2019
A Script for Machine Synthesis
2017
Leave or Remain
2016
Articulação
2014
Acid In The Style Of David Tudor
2009
UPIC WARP TRACKS
2008
Palimpsest
2004
Sun Pandamonium
2003
I T ISO161975
1998
Singles
