These were made during gaps in Hecker’s solo discography I felt their inclusion was important because it showcases his adaptability in working with others, while also highlighting his distinct imprint against like-minded artists. So why rearrange Hecker’s works from worst to best, especially when there isn’t much to fault on any of these releases? For one thing, recognition for Hecker’s work has steadily increased, and though his most recent albums are some of his strongest, it can be useful to reevaluate what came before. The chronological playback is surprisingly, satisfyingly connected. If you’ve got a spare 10 hours (give or take), it is possible to begin with 2001 debut Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again and end with Love Streams, which was released this month, as one long opera, a diary of thoughts and concepts painstakingly explored by an unassuming composer in his Montreal studio. In an era of Spotify playlists and Hype Machine trends that favor hot-take singles over full-album playback, Hecker has staunchly favored the latter. Most of Hecker’s records provide the listener with a continuous auditory experience there are individual tracks, but they often bleed together to form a cogent whole. The way he layered instrumental elements over billowing white-noise collage (both within individual tracks but also across entire albums) made drone and ambient fans take note from the get-go, inspiring a fervent devotion in the early aughts, while the rest of the world was listening very earnestly to indie rock.įast forward to today: Love Streams, his eighth full-length solo album and first for 4AD, and Hecker has become a known entity outside the insular scene he came up with. With a PhD in sound studies from McGill, Hecker started producing eponymous work that disrupted musical experience, both explicitly and subtly. He began his career releasing minimal electro under the moniker Jetone, but abandoned the project early on, finding its reliance on club beats too restrictive. For 15 years now, Hecker has chased down particular moods and even physical sensations with a batch of records that have garnered increasing recognition.
Meanwhile, the fundamental characteristic of “ambient” music – generally pegged as background drivel by its very definition – seems a complete misnomer, as Hecker’s work demands to be heard under the same kind of meditative hyper-focus with which he makes it. He does use electronic manipulation to create drone-infused atmospheres, but in recent years, he has increasingly relied on live recordings of orchestral elements to form a base for that work. There are few ambient electronic artists as consistent and groundbreaking as Tim Hecker, even if the terms “ambient” and “electronic” barely encompass the scope of his work.
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