Four Tet

There Is Love In You

(Domino)

Record Review by Marcel Feldmar

First off, a disclaimer. While I have heard the name Four Tet being mentioned in various musical circles since around 2000, I have not really given myself the chance to explore his music. By his, I mean Kieran Hebden. The man who is Four Tet. So, that being the case, I am listening to this newest, latest album as a singular entity and not comparing it to what came before.

What comes now, though, is a start to a journey, with the first song, “Angel Echoes”. It’s a little electro, a little ethereal, a little groove, and while tied to the techno, it isn’t cold. It’s airy electronic, and with the female vocals cutting and splicing across the beat, it moves and sways more than you think it should. It lulls, and then as you relax, you get hit with song number two. It’s dark, or darker, and it starts out slow and menacing, and then the funky tribal beat kicks in, and I’m not so sure where I am going anymore. This is not my music (this is not my beautiful house), this is not familiar territory for me. Some of you might hear this and start shouting out things like “Autechre!” or “Squarepusher!”, but not me. My ears have not turned in that direction often enough.

It has been close to a decade since I worked in a record store where I was subjected at times, along with all the customers, to random playings of creations by Luke Vibert, Aphex Twin, Manitoba, The Orb, and Nobukazu Takemura. I hear Four Tet, and I think that I should slide it somewhere in there… somewhere. What I can reference are bands like Tortoise. I liked them. And maybe Oval, a little Oval. Although I think that there is definitely another voice at work here. If Tortoise was a bit more fractured, and went for more of a “Sun Ra playing Prince songs at an Italian discotheque” vibe, you might have come a little closer to whatever is making music in Kieran’s head.

This album plays with minimalism, but avoids being minimal. There are loops and repeating rhythms and sounds that hit like rainy days. There is movement in these songs that is Jazz. There are reflections of world beats, African rhythms, Asian touched melodics that break apart on a hypnotic dance-floor like some Jean-Michel Jarre induced waterfall. There are lyrics, sometimes, but I think that I would actually call this an instrumental album. It’s just that one of the instruments happens to be a voice, or voices. The vocals are played because of how they sound, and not for what is being said.

So yes, this is a little IDM, a little experimental, a little techno-what have you, but it definitely feels like it wants to dance. Simple in instrumentation, but surprisingly diverse in mood. And I don’t just mean hyper-electro dance either. I mean like slow dance, smooth dance, groove dance, and a little four on the floor dance.

For example, after the upbeat and jerky pop dance of “Sing” that hits about halfway through the album and sort of feels like a found sound collage cut-up based around the chorus of Madonna’s “Don’t Tell Me” comes a slow trip-hopped beat that is slowly covered by a beautiful guitar melody, sliding like some Massive Attack snowdrift over a soft ocean static. You end up moving to both songs, but in very different ways.

The CD ends with the haunting and seductive “She Just Likes to Fight”. What a wonderful place to stop. There are soft guitar lines and percussive Tabla drums playing around handclaps and finger cymbals, all raining over a steady beat that pushes underneath. I don’t know where Four Tet used to be, but this is where it seems to be right now, and that’s just perfectly alright with me.