When Kieran Hebden released his second Four Tet album,
Pause, two
years ago, he certainly got more than he bargained for.
Follow up to his solo debut, Dialogue, this
second album took him far away from his guitar duty
in post-rock combo Fridge,
as he was called to promote it and play all over the
world for nearly the whole of 2001. After returning
to Fridge for a bit,
and following a highly successful tour with the band,
as well as some more solo live performances, including
a support slot for Radiohead in Spain and Portugal,
Kieran returns to his successful Four Tet project with
this third album.
Kieran formed Fridge
in 1996 with a couple of college mates. Hailing from
Putney, South London, the trio soon imposed their sound,
a mixture of art-rock and electronica, with a series
of critically acclaimed EPs and albums. Shying away
from the limelight, the band voluntarily played complex
music, pushing boundaries in many directions to expand
their sonic realm up to the magnificent Happiness,
released in the autumn of 2001. Hebden also started
experimenting with machines for his own benefit. His
two first singles as Four Tet, Thirtysixtwentyfive
(a Fridge-esque title
refering to the length of the EP), and Misnomer,
were both NME single of the week, and the subsequent
album, Dialogue, released on Trevor Jackson’s
Output Recordings label, got a very warm reception from
both press and public. Mixing elements of jazz and soul,
Hebden defined a very strong musical identity, further
developed on Pause
a couple of years later.
Pause was also introducing some more laidback
and complex ambiences as Hebden widened his musical
scope by introducing some elements of folk, R&B,
hip-hop and psychedelic pop. Combining musicality and
relative abstraction, the album was bringing electronic
purists and post-rock devotees together.
If Pause was
taking the Four Tet sound in new directions, Rounds
sees Hebden perfecting his style. ‘This record
has a 2am lonely feeling, because that was largely when
it was made, on my own, in my little flat’ does
he declare. Focussing on emotional content rather than
on technicality has allowed him great freedom in the
way he contemplates his influences. Although the ten
tracks of Rounds demonstrate a good sense of
sound organisation, Hebden chooses to concentrate on
the musical aspect of his compositions rather than on
their atmospheric characteristics. It is not to say
that his tracks are devoid of any atmosphere altogether.
Quite the opposite in fact as Hands, which
opens the album, She Moves She, the beautiful
nine-and-a-half-minute epic Unspoken or As
Serious As Your Life prove again and again. Yet,
it feels as if the moods are the unexpected consequence
of his musical wanderings.
Close to the vision of his friend Dan Snaith, better
known as Manitoba,
Hebden’s interpretation of electronic music goes
far beyond the classic assumption that it has to sound
utterly artificial. Using a wide range of samples, he
creates the illusion that everything was recorded live,
yet every single track is the result of a meticulous
assemblage of various elements processed on a computer,
from pianos and guitars to drums and effects. Often
voluntarily breaking up his musical themes and rhythmic
sections to give more definitions to his compositions,
he also knows when to let a melody develop, as on the
beautiful and melancholic And They All Look Broken
Hearted, definitely one of the highlights here.
As intricate and thought out as it might be, Four Tet’s
music actually feels very spontaneous and organic, and
this third album is very likely to establish further
Kieran Hebden’s status as a major artist with
a very strong musical personality.
4.6/5 |
