Four Tet: 'Morning/Evening'

Four Tet, 'Morning/Evening', Text, 2015

People sometimes talk about a particular piece of music becoming ‘The Soundtrack To The Summer’, and I think I might have just found mine for this year.  Four Tet’s ‘Morning/Evening’ mini-album probably won’t be heard emitting from every other shop and passing car, and it’s hardly a concise slice of pop catchiness.  Hebden is a significant enough proposition to make an impact in more forward-thinking clubs over the coming weeks nonetheless.  I don’t frequent such places, these days, but I suspect I’ll be spinning this record repeatedly for a while, all the same.

Kieren Hebden first came to prominence as one third of Post- Rock instrumental noodlists, Fridge, but his profile mainly derives from his solo work as Four Tet, and his various creative collaborations.  The latter include four albums with the late versatile percussionist, Steve Reid, which is indicative of how Hebden’s own oeuvre reaches out towards various musical genres, not least Free Jazz.  It was this inherent eclecticism that prevented him becoming terminally pigeonholed as a purveyor of pastoral, folk-inflected electronica, as lazy journalists once tried so hard to do.

Kieren Hebden

(L.): Steve Reid.  (R.): Kieren Hebden

It is still fair to say that Hebden’s sound has always been characterised by an inherent loveliness, - a pleasure in the combining of seductive sound sources, if you will.  Certainly, he’s no stranger to harp strings, chimes and less-than-clinical percussion.  These days though, he self-identifies as a far more dance floor-oriented producer/D.J.  There’s definitely a little more rhythmic functionality and slickness of production to his music now, although still plenty of the organic warmth that was always its appeal.  Ultimately, he just feels like a perennial seeker of new sonic blends, and ‘Morning/Evening’ is a more than satisfying fulfillment of that brief.

Kieren Hebden In D.J. Mode

In this case, the most obvious development is Hebden’s conscious embracing of his half-Indian heritage.  The two extended tracks, (each around the twenty minute mark), clearly refer to the classical Raga tradition, both in their being applicable to certain times of the day, and the way they morph elegantly between passages of shifting mood and intensity.  As with sometime-collaborator, Burial’s later work, the ambition seems almost symphonic in scope.  Both pieces also revolve around samples of renowned Hindi film singer Lata Mangeshkar.  If I’m honest, hers is a style of singing that can, when piped intrusively through a curry house sound system, occasionally set my teeth on edge.  Here though, it’s just plain gorgeous.  Hebden threads her voice through his glistening electronic tones in a manner that is totally, and very effectively, unembarrassed by sumptuous beauty.

Of the two tracks, ‘Morning Side’ is the most on its toes from the start, laying Mangeshkar’s vocal and accompanying strings over a relatively straightforward, shuffling beat.   For me, the genius of the track is the way that, having established this relatively simple idea, he lets it subtly coalesce into something far more intriguing, acquiring complexity over a number of minutes.  The source sounds gradually become multiplied and drenched in echo, shifting in and out of phase and intertwining with shimmering electronic tones, to create a sense of sultry immersion.  Roughly half way through, there’s a brief percussive interlude, demonstrating Hebden’s complex beat manipulation skills.  However, the lush melodic mode soon reasserts itself, emphasising that this is something to whirl around to in blissful reverie, rather than a full-on dance floor assault.

Lata Mangeshkar

For much of its duration ‘Morning Sound’ sounds like an Indian film soundtrack and one of those Cluster or Harmonia records I mentioned a couple of posts back, playing simultaneously.  In its final minutes the vocals drop out and the track very slowly subsides, as the electronic tones are erased bit by bit.  It’s one of the best bits of quasi-ambient sound sculpting I’ve heard in a while.

‘Evening Side’, picks up where the previous track fades out, in, if anything, an even more meditative mode.  The first half is characterised by yet dreamier, wordless, vocal ululations and washes of twilit ambience.  The track pivots around a central passage in which, as darkness falls, the sound becomes distinctly minimal and is augmented by the sounds of roosting birds.  With half the world asleep though, the other half comes out to party, and the remainder of the track plays out in an energetic beat workout, not unlike the kind of thing Underworld and their ilk used to indulge in.

Four Tet, 'Beautiful Rewind', Text Records, 2013

I’ve had a lot of pleasure from Kieren Hebden’s music over many years now, and he’s yet to disappoint me.  His music-making motivations seem sincere, and, however much of a name he may have become in certain circles, it seems to be primarily a musical journey that he’s on.  This is underlined by the way that, these days, his recordings are often released with very little hoopla, and sometimes only as downloads for those in the know, via his own Text imprint.  He also seems able to pull off that trick of having a very recognisable approach (a ‘sound’, even), whilst consciously seeking new territory each time he records.  ‘Morning/Evening’ just serves to underline that fact.  Well-played, young man.