Reviews
Four Tet
While Kieran Hebden has been a big name within electronic music since the turn of the new millennium, his emergence as a headlining club DJ may have surprised many. Although the name Four Tet has long carried enough weight to fill a room, his early records, and arguably most celebrated, were hardly floor filling material. Hebden’s brand of jazz influenced instrumental hip-hop may still be sorely missed by some, but his enthusiasm for, and understanding of, the dancefloor has seen him break new ground. This new aspect of Four Tet’s career is instilled in the 59th instalment of Fabriclive, which in many ways can be seen as Hebden’s love letter to the club itself.
Like anything he lays his hand to, Four Tet’s Fabriclive mix puts a unique spin on long-established traditions. Hebden claims that the mix is not about his skills as a DJ, but about “London and Fabric and nights out[...]The memories and the influences.” There are even sections on the CD dedicated to the multi-room superclub, attempting to convey the feeling of moving between the various spaces in search of different sounds. Of course this approach won’t be for everyone, and these ambitious sequences could easily be conceived as pretentious undertakings better suited to university dorm rooms. Listen closer to the mix, however, and we can trace Hebden’s love of club music to its beginnings in ’90s garage through to more minimalist works and indeed his own productions.
There are two new tracks here from Four Tet himself, both of which go to show how he has been influenced by the club scene. Most impressive is ‘Pyramid’, arguably one of his finest productions to date, as he manipulates swirling vocal samples around a pulsing bass throb. Elsewhere his selection is a varied assortment of new and old, placing unearthed gems like Crazy Bald Heads’ ‘First Born’ alongside more contemporary work from the likes of Burial and Floating Points. While the mixing itself is unadventurous, as Hebden outlined from the start this mix is not necessarily about himself, but conceptually its faultless. Enjoyment in this mix CD more or less comes down to whether you buy into this concept, but Four Tet fans at least should see this as an extension of what makes Hebden such a rare talent.
Words: Kyle Ellison
Fabriclive 59 by Four Tet is out Monday 19th September on fabric. Hebden launches his Fabriclive mix on Friday 23rd September – click here for more info.
