Konoyo

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.^[2]

Konoyo
Studio album by Tim Hecker
Released	September 28, 2018
Studio	Various Studio Atlio Jiunzan Mandala-Temple Kanzouin, Tokyo Sunblind Studios
Genre	Electronic ambient dark ambient drone gagaku sound collage[1]
Length	59:06
Label	Kranky
Producer	Tim Hecker
Tim Hecker chronology
Love Streams (2016) Konoyo (2018) Anoyo (2019)
Singles from Konoyo
"This Life" Released: July 31, 2018 "Keyed Out" Released: September 12, 2018

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
AnyDecentMusic?	7.7/10[3]
Metacritic	82/100[4]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[5]
Drowned in Sound	8/10[6]
Exclaim!	9/10[7]
The Guardian	[8]
Mojo	[9]
Pitchfork	8.5/10[10]
PopMatters	9/10[11]
Resident Advisor	4.2/5[12]
Rolling Stone	[13]
Uncut	7/10[14]

Konoyo received 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 82, based on 18 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".^[4]

Accolades

Publication	Accolade	Rank	Ref.
Crack Magazine	Top 50 Albums of 2018	26	[15]
Gaffa	Top 30 Albums of 2018	13	[16]
The 405	Top 50 Albums of 2018	6	[17]
PopMatters	Top 70 Albums of 2018	28	[18]
	Top 20 Avant-Garde and Experimental Albums of 2018	4	[19]
Sputnikmusic	Top 50 Albums of 2018	7	[20]
Tiny Mix Tapes	Top 50 Albums of 2018	21	[21]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Tim Hecker.

No.	Title	Length
1.	"This Life"	8:42
2.	"In Death Valley"	5:36
3.	"Is a Rose Petal of the Dying Crimson Light"	3:27
4.	"Keyed Out"	9:46
5.	"In Mother Earth Phase"	10:26
6.	"A Sodium Codec Haze"	5:46
7.	"Across to Anoyo"	15:26
Total length:		59:06

Notes

• All tracks are stylized in sentence case, except for "In Death Valley" and "Across to Anoyo". For example, "This Life" is stylized as "This life".

Personnel

• Mariel Roberts – cello
• Tim Hecker – computer, electric guitar, synth, writer, producer
• Kara-Lis Coverdale – keyboards
• Yoshiyuki Izaki – percussion (uchimono)
• Takuya Koketsu – woodwind (ryuteki)
• Motonori Miura – woodwind (hichiriki)
• Fumiya Otonashi – shō
• Jake Viator – transfer
• Akihiro Iizuka – engineer
• Ben Frost – engineer
• Toshihiko Kasai – engineer
• Teo Schifferli – design, layout
• Tobias Spichtig – artwork, photography

Charts

Chart (2018)	Peak position
UK Dance Albums (OCC)[22]	18