Four Tet – There is Love in You
There Is love In You has all of the essential ingredients of a Four Tet album - it whispers and screams in equal measure, builds and collapses, hesitates and struts. The ever-changing rhythmic pulse that beats throughout every Four Tet record is present but four albums in, things feel more focused (possibly thanks to recent work with jazz drumming legend Steve Reid). 'Angel Echoes' kicks things off with a hauntingly disjointed female vocal loop backed by subtle drumbeat, interspersed with xylophone, bells and more – it’s so difficult to pin down all of the individual elements that combine to create the track. Each listen brings an awareness of previously un-noticed sounds – which neatly sums up the essence of the album.
And it's been quite a while coming too, four years in fact since Kieran Hebden last made an album under the revered moniker of Four Tet. As he told Ragged Words recently, he hit a brick wall after 2006's Everything Ecstatic and was "desperate to do something different...not feeling like I was pushing myself anymore." As well as the aforementioned catalogue of work with ex-Miles Davis stickman Reid, he also teamed up in the interim with Burial for the ultimate dubstep/electronica wet dream collaboration and became possibly the coolest dad to bang out the tunes at Shoreditch haunt Plastic People. Reinvigorated, it's clear the former Fridge operator's appetite was well and truly whetted for a return to the day job.
Indeed it was during his residence at Plastic People that Hebden refined tracks for the album by playing them as part of his DJ sets, constantly tweaking them based on the response they got. 'Sing' is a perfect example of this iterative approach, shining through as it gradually builds up towards the 5 minute mark and slowly comes back down. Another highlight among highlights is the final track 'She Just Likes to Fight'. A sparser affair focused on a simple guitar loop, it gives the listener the aural equivalent of breathing space before the album closes.
Whether listened to with noise-cancelling headphones or in a claustrophobic basement club, There Is Love In You is a total joy from beginning to end. Personally, I’d go with the headphones. On repeat.
Mini review
In a bid to try something different following the mixed bag of 2006’s Everything Ecstatic, Kieran Hebden spent much of the following three years working with the late, great jazz drummer Steve Reid. Hebden returned to the day job this year to deliver what might just be a career-high in There Is Love In You – a record that successfully marries the quick, pulsating rhythms gleaned from that time spent with Reid to Hebden’s own renewed love for DJing. This fifth Four Tet LP is his most clubbed-up yet as a result, and in ‘Love Cry’ and ‘Sing’ the former Fridge man has crafted a pair of what can only be termed bangers. It’s a mark of Hebden’s prowess that There Is Love In You succeeds just as readily on noise-cancelling headphones as it does when blasting out of a basement club’s PA. (Review) (Interview)
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