Tim Hecker: Love Streams

It’s a vague, ill-defined mass; an assemblage of tunes being recollected in the head of a casual listener who only heard them once, many years before. Of course, by its very nature, that hazy quality does occasionally feel akin to slightness, and tracks like ‘Music Of The Air’ and ‘Live Leak Instrumental’ will be quickly dismissed by the majority of listeners. After all, it’s hard to become emotionally invested in tracks that actively reject such devotion: you can’t love something that doesn’t want you to.

But at other times that selfsame flaw is what elevates the piece to heights of perfection. ‘Bijie Dream’ is all echoes and suggestions, but becomes increasingly insistent and powerful without rising in either volume or intensity. The essential oddness of the whole record means it won’t be scoring any of your future parties, but again, that’s what makes it mostly work. The strange, tangled ‘Violent Monumental I’ and the beautiful ‘Castrati Stack’ both demand isolation; they require the stillness of a 2am listening session, and benefit from time spent with Hecker and Hecker alone.

Love Streams might be imperfect, but its dogged, damaged beauty will hang about you like so much second-hand smoke.