Read & Listen

Four Tet – There Is Love in You
[Domino, 2010]

Kieran Hebden once again proved that he’s a true magician. The new Four Tet album “There Is Love In You” makes your heart skip a beat, which is a very rare quality. Luckily, it doesn’t happen all 47 minutes of its play, otherwise I’d get a stroke somewhere within the first listen. Some moments bring you to a neuron orgasm, and the rest of the time it’s foreplay with eardrums, lengthy audio tenderness… All this really sounds like lovemaking – affectionate, slow, immaculate. When you’re expecting a bright finale, and instead get several more minutes of elongated pleasure. Ecstatic theme continues from the previous LP, “Everything Ecstatic”. Alright, so much for erotic themes, let’s get to music.
Continuous loops, infinite swagging of tracks, it’s all not so much about crescendo as about getting you to some other level of perception. The magic begins with the beautiful opening track Angel Echoes, which gave name to the album title, there is love in you. The phrase repeats over and over in a soft female vocals, with bells and rhythms bogging you about a meter down. The next piece, single Love Cry, keeps you in the thick of this electronic water enhanced with oxygen. The influence of Burial on Hebden in the past years is obvious, and Love Cry proves it every second and every beat. Nine minutes of wholesome enjoyment in minor and dark tones. The rhythms are responsible for half of the hypnotic effect, the other half provided by loops and melodic. This is true not only for this track, but for the whole of the album.

After the first two diamonds, the album gets into a more quiet place. This doesn’t spoil the sound, just gets you to catch your breath for a while. Additional moments of pure joy are Sing – which is surprisingly reminiscent of Aphex Twin’s “Windowlicker”. This Unfolds does what it says – unfolds slowly, like quiet snow falling to the ground or clouds surfing the sky, then rhythms add up. And it’s impossible to stop listening to Plastic People, a touchy six-minute track, again making you think of Burial.

A wonderful album for social meditations, asocial comatose and other autistic manifestations in the social environment.

Read & Listen:
Four Tet official site
Four Tet on Myspace
Angel Echoes
Angel Echoes (BBC session)  by  Four Tet