Four Tet - A Beautiful Rewind
Release Date: October 15
Label: Text Records
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Ever picked a turtle up out of the water? It's little legs still kick as if it was swimming. It just does stuff better in water. Four Tet just sounds better when he's doing hip hop influenced stuff.
He is possibly one of the most out-of-the-box producers out there right now, even coining the genre 'folktronica', but, as evidenced by 'A Beautiful Rewind', he's in his element when redefining the boundary lines for hip hop, merging them with psychedelic, neon and pastel landscapes of ambient and electronic music. He's a blender and the sounscapes he crafts are ideal for background or foreground stuff. Really there is SO much of this stuff out there right now. You download an app on your iPad mini and you can be a Four Tet too. But there is a restraint and intelligence that set his stuff WAY apart from any wannabe DJ on Soundcloud. Every album he puts out has a focus and an idea driving it. His true skill lies in creating something current and textured in amongst all the other stale DJ spin off projects. It's Thom Yorke hanging with The Dub Pistols talking about Sufjan Stevens. Or at least that's what this album is.
I do like to see his little turtle legs kick when they're out of his depth. This is possibly not his strongest work because it does largely feel like a comfort zone. 'Buchla' is undoubtedly the highlight of the album - a club thumper impossible to resist.
If turtles swim, then I guess let them do that. Four Tet has already proved that he can plant both feet firmly outside his comfort zone. That said and done, it's quite nice for us to hear him in his element again.
WVS
He is possibly one of the most out-of-the-box producers out there right now, even coining the genre 'folktronica', but, as evidenced by 'A Beautiful Rewind', he's in his element when redefining the boundary lines for hip hop, merging them with psychedelic, neon and pastel landscapes of ambient and electronic music. He's a blender and the sounscapes he crafts are ideal for background or foreground stuff. Really there is SO much of this stuff out there right now. You download an app on your iPad mini and you can be a Four Tet too. But there is a restraint and intelligence that set his stuff WAY apart from any wannabe DJ on Soundcloud. Every album he puts out has a focus and an idea driving it. His true skill lies in creating something current and textured in amongst all the other stale DJ spin off projects. It's Thom Yorke hanging with The Dub Pistols talking about Sufjan Stevens. Or at least that's what this album is.
I do like to see his little turtle legs kick when they're out of his depth. This is possibly not his strongest work because it does largely feel like a comfort zone. 'Buchla' is undoubtedly the highlight of the album - a club thumper impossible to resist.
If turtles swim, then I guess let them do that. Four Tet has already proved that he can plant both feet firmly outside his comfort zone. That said and done, it's quite nice for us to hear him in his element again.
WVS
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