Domino
Released : 25th January 2010
01 Angel Echoes
02 Love Cry
03 Circling
04 Pablo's Heart
05 Sing
06 This unfolds
07 Reversing
08 Plastic People
09 She just likes to fight
Kieran Hebden's seventh Four Tet album, and the first full length for over four years, proves to be a good listen.
The focus is on serial repetition with layered arpeggiations, and developing elements which add laminal substance. Particularly clever are the liminal bass patterns that shift against the main themes. There is some glitch, especially with the subdued frenzy of "Sing" which bubbles along against an almost pastoral backbeat until a chirpy back-beat enters to give the piece a reason to dance to it.
The use of vocal samples is sparse and good for that. Only only the hypnotic opener "Angel Echoes" is there significant use of voice.
Perhaps the most compelling track is "This unfolds" which has significant post-rock elements. Indeed the marriage of post-rock devices is only perhaps captured as well by Tortoise. The gentle introduction of a number of different elements over a basic repeated figure is memorable. Second to this perhaps is the closer "She Likes to Fight" whose elegiac guitar echoes "Explosions in the Sky" but without the Texan's sturm and drang.
All in all a good album to get hold of and chill out to. Reviews elsewhere have been less complimentary, I suggest considered listening pays dividends.
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