- The UK artist's most downtempo album in a while looks backwards and forwards at the same time.
- Despite closing out Coachella's main stage and playing open to close at Madison Square Garden last year—both alongside Skrillex and Fred again..—Kieran Hebden, on his 12th studio album as Four Tet, explores atmospheric ambient more thoroughly than he has in more than a decade. His DJ sets may be getting increasingly rowdy, featuring everything from tongue-in-cheek EDM drops to "O Tannenbaum" from A Charlie Brown Christmas, but the music he produces has never succumbed to that kind of instant gratification or gotcha mentality. Three is the opposite, with its serene sense of calm and drawn-out, meditative excursions that look as far back as Hebden's snug post-rock days.
Back in 2001, the seven-second intro of "Skater" may have been an elaborate, self-searching emotional epic. But here, it's a brief prelude to the best track on the album, a shoegaze-y soar through cloudy pads and blissful guitar melodies, lifted by warm sub-bass and a gentle drum kit. Hebden's less beat-driven music actually sounds better as it's become less esoteric. His synth work and accompanying world-building juts to the foreground, as heard on the previously released "Three Drums," a slow-burning rapturous sound bath. Anchored by a simple four-measure drum loop, a surge of billowing synths swell up over the course of five minutes before they collapse and recede, leaving behind a soothing puddle of sounds that eventually evaporate into an angelic vocal. It feels impossible not to finish all the way through, knowing you'll get that warm, fuzzy afterglow.
Hebden evokes similar feelings on "Storm Crystals," which uses the same circular synth ideas as his longest-ever track (the nearly 27-minute "Parallel 1"). Like its predecessor, "Storm Crystals" employs a concise pocket melody but never truly loops, resulting in a tasty, carrot-and-stick tune that would be just fine going on for the rest of eternity. "So Blue," with its melancholy blips and disembodied, ghostly croons, feels good too—but in a more complex way, like removing yourself from a painful relationship.
Each of these tracks is anchored by a similarly understated drum kit, a subtle mechanism to keep the music in forward motion while the melodies are free to travel as they please. Hebden does, of course, leave room for some driving club tracks. "Daydream Repeat," with its signature crispy drum pattern, delivers an exhilarating rush of feverish noise that does a jaw-dropping 180 into yet another fabulous harp melody and a bubbly bassline. "31 Bloom" is more introspective, going darker and sparser with its dubby synth stabs and muted toms.
The finishing touch on the album is actually the first track, "Loved." It wasn't until Hebden's close friends and collaborators Caribou and Floating Points gifted him a Terra synth that he was able to write the missing piece, creating what sounds like an immediate relative of one of his most beloved tracks, "Two Thousand and Seventeen." The way he calls back to nearly all of his past projects, one could make the mistake that Hebden's best years are behind him. That would be missing the point, though. Regardless of all the attention he's received from his massive performances, he's still looking for new ways to be Four Tet.
Tracklist01. Loved
02. Gliding Through Everything
03. Storm Crystals
04. Daydream Repeat
05. Skater
06. 31 Bloom
07. So Blue
08. Three Drums