Canadian composer Tim Hecker has meticulously arranged static storms into intricate cathedrals from digital decay for two decades. His albums like Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again (2001), Harmony in Ultraviolet (2006), and Ravedeath, 1972 (2011) established him as a formidable presence at the intersection of noise, melody, and melancholy; his soundscapes always operating in the margins between grandeur and disintegration—the architecture of sonic ruin. His latest work, released last month, Shards, extends this legacy by compiling fragments from recent cinematic scoring projects into an enigmatic yet compelling standalone experience.

Initially composed for Brandon Cronenberg’s gruesome sci-fi thriller Infinity Pool (2023), Andrew Haigh’s stark survivalist drama The North Water (2021), Peter Brunner’s claustrophobic horror Luzifer (2021), and the French fog fantasy of Guillaume Nicloux's La Tour (2023), the seven tracks on Shards transcend their visual roots, now existing as spectral imprints detached from narrative context. Within this space, they linger with haunting persistence, drifting low like the cold mist motifs of their sources long after the credits have rolled.

From its opening moments, Shards elucidates like a cyberpunk séance. Heaven Will Come is its slo-mo exhalation, permeated with gravity that lures through tension. Icesynth follows suit, resonating with The North Water's crystalline yet bleak Arctic vistas; its crafted drones swirl around an almost bioorganic call for relief. It is the sound of exploration melting into the chilling acceptance of permanent voyage at the whim of nature's unrelenting inevitability.

But for all the underlying dread, Shards occasionally permits a gentler mood. Morning (Piano Version) arrives quietly, like the first hints of dawn filtering through the ruins of Chornobyl. The piano notes briefly bloom and vanish into a distorted Basinski-like tape loop or the muted poetics of Harold Budd.

Notably, such experimental and ambient music is enjoying a moment within indie cinema. Recent accolades, such as Daniel Blumberg—an avant-garde regular at London's Cafe Oto—winning this year's Academy Award for Best Score for The Brutalist, alongside the likes Oneohtrix Point Never’s intense Uncut Gems soundtrack, and the spectral dissonance of Mica Levi's The Zone of Interest, highlight a more abstract appetite for scoring over traditional orchestral bombast. Shards affirms ambient music’s capacity for effective cinematic storytelling within this landscape–showing, not saying.

But experiencing Shards independent of its visual anchors invites the question: How effectively do these compositions communicate on their own terms? And Hecker answers this with a consistent elegance. Personal album highlights Sars Requiem, echoes its dreary origins but manifests more poignantly as an elusive memory hovering at the edge of cognition. Monotone 3 pulses with spectral tension, its ghostly woodwinds and submerged drones articulating the psychological unravelling portrayed in Luzifer, all without explicit visual support.

Then comes Joyride Alternate, the album at its most kinetic. Reminiscent of Oliver Coates’ elegantly minimalist score for Aftersun (2023), the track achieves emotional intensity through its tension-tranquility ebb and flow. Yet even within its propulsion, a disorienting fragility remains—a lucid dream walking along cracked glass.

While perhaps less explicitly ambitious than past works like Virgins, Shards exerts its power quietly and persistently. At his finest, Hecker has always evaded extemporal constraint, existing beyond traditional metrics of immediacy or duration. Here, even his residual sonic sketches resonate monumentally. With Shards, Hecker demonstrates how the most evocative music often emerges gradually, infiltrating awareness softly and steadily until, quietly, it becomes overwhelming.