Haunt Me by Tim Hecker

I bought this album after falling in love with Tim's newest album 'Harmony In Ultraviolet'. Sometimes dipping into an artist's back catalogue can be a risky business as you never quite know what to expect, especially when the album in question is 6 years older than the newest record. But there's absolutely no doubt that buying this album was a risk worth taking.Tim's newest work is thick with layer upon layer of mutated digital sounds, to simply call it 'ambient' does an injustice to the depth and variety of the sonic palette utilized. Listening to Tim Hecker is by no means easy and at times is utterly bewildering..but then as the layers unfold themselves and reveal the true heart of the music you can't help but get sucked in. You could say that the rewards vastly outweigh any initial suffering as each listen yields something new.While 'Haunt Me..' is still a confusingly complex album it's a lot more straightforward than the newest record and takes a lot less time to understand. Every piece is laced with melodies and atmosphere aplenty making it a much more conventional ambient listening experience but no less intricate or involving. This is timeless, beautiful music that manages to be both personal and intimate whilst also being cinematic in scope. Listening to this album is like stepping out onto an alien landscape such is it's sprawling otherworldliness.I can't recommend this album enough.

I once played this record to my 80-year old grandma, intrigued by what she might think. She said it was beautiful, that it reminded her of the northern lights, and did other people I know listen to music like this? At the time, I had to admit (with some disappointment) that no, they didn't. Since then I've pressed Tim Hecker on quite a few of my friends, playing them albums, particularly this one, and slipping tracks onto mix CDs. Without fail they ask about it, and it's hard not to see why. This is certainly STRANGE music (but don't let that put you off). 'Haunt Me Haunt Me Do It Again' is a dreamy and confusing album - so much so that a Cocteau Twins-esque pop sample during 'untitled (3)' sounds positively meaty. Yet Hecker is equally unafraid to use noise, though carefully tempered with ambient drones, resulting in sounds not unlike a radio trapped between stations late at night. The album's fizzing and humming manages to produce both feelings of grandeur and sprawling wastelands, sometimes sounding like a warped, more sinister, combination of Oval and Boards of Canada. I've been listening to this record for eight months, and each time it throws up new quirks and intricacies. It's an album to savour, certainly a recommended purchase.