DJ-Kicks

Performer: Four Tet
Distributor: Caroline Distribution

Notes: DJ: Four Tet. No stranger to in-the-mix compilations (see his 2004 LATE NIGHT TALES disc), Kieran Hebden (a.k.a. Four Tet) offers up a highly eclectic set on this installment of the DJ-KICKS series. Among the songs selected by the lauded British electronica artist are Curtis Mayfield's gentle funk tune "If I Were Only a Child Again," Stereolab's pulsing techno-pop track "Les Yper-Sound," and Cabaret Voltaire's minimalist industrial number "Kneel to the Boss." The main draw for Four Tet fans, of course, is Hebden's own previously unreleased "Pockets," a synth-heavy piece that features clattering percussion. While Four Tet's gleeful genre-hopping may be too much for some--the track listing also features underground hip-hop and indie-folk--open-minded listeners will be rewarded with a fascinatingly varied collection. In the same vein perhaps as LateNight Tales, which came out earlier the same year, DJ-Kicks finds Kieran Hebden choosing some of his favorite songs from both past and present to share with his audience. But while LateNight Tales was just a cut-and-dried collection, DJ-Kicks has Hebden mixing the tracks together into something that resembles a possible club set. Though the music of Four Tet is firmly placed within the IDM/indie electronica context, not only has Hebden worked with artists from a variety of genres (Beth Orton, Kings of Convenience, Koushik, Bloc Party, to name a few), but his actual influences are also just as far reaching, if not more so. The album moves from soul (Curtis Mayfield's "If I Were Only a Child Again") to indie pop (Stereolab's "Les Yper-Sound") to pure electronica (Akufen's "Pyschometry") to hip-hop (Group Home's "Up Against the Wall [Getaway Car Remix]") effortlessly, not just because of the actual production, but because of Hebden himself. There's clearly something inside him that connects each of these pieces to him, and he's able to use it to create a real sense of continuity, even if the tracks themselves can be a little disparate. Perhaps this is reflected best in "Pockets," the Four Tet song that comes on a little more than halfway through the album. It isn't quite like anything else on DJ-Kicks, but still it encompasses everything that has come before it and everything that will come after. Using synthesizers in house-like beats, various organic and inorganic forms of percussion, layers of sounds and effects that work their way in and out of the piece, and a good sense of melody, "Pockets" represents not just Four Tet's work but also Kieran Hebden's musical interests as well as the album itself does. And for fans of Four Tet, that's reason enough to make DJ-Kicks interesting. ~ Marisa Brown

One of the key artists of the folktronica movement, Kieran Hebden, aka Four Tet, mixes samples of jazz, acoustic, and psychedelic music with mid-tempo techno and hip-hop beats to create a uniquely warm and organic form of electronica. 2003's ROUNDS is often considered the definitive folktronica recording and one of the best electronica albums of the decade. Hebden is also a member of the British post-rock outfit Fridge.

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