Format: CD, Vinyl, Cass.
Label: Hostess Entertainment Unlimited, Text Records
Tracklist:
01. Alap
02. Two Thousand and Seventeen
03. LA Trance
04. Tremper
05. Lush
06. Scientists
07. Falls 2
08. You Are Loved
09. SW9 9SL
10. 10 Midi
11. Memories
12. Daughter
13. Gentle Soul
14. Planet
Nearing 20 years as an ambassador between indie rock and dance music, Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden has winnowed down the parts that clutter up music-making itself: He declines most interviews and still trots out the same publicity photo that accompanied his 2003 breakout Rounds. But after 2009’s sumptuous There Is Love in You, he took the reins himself, releasing a flurry of albums, experiments, collaborations, and singles on his own, and now keeps up a healthy social network presence on Twitter, Snapchat, and Soundcloud. With his legacy as one of the 21st-century’s finest electronic musicians all but assured, Hebden has become more of a populist, making few distinctions between working with Burial or Skrillex, Terror Danjah or Rihanna.
His restless forward momentum and pursuit of new sounds make every Four Tet album distinct from its predecessor. But with Four Tet’s ninth album, New Energy, Hebden does something unexpected: He revisits previous sounds. There’s the low-key warmth of 2003’s Rounds, the free jazz at the heart of 2005’s Everything Ecstatic, the friendly thump of 2012’s Pink, the sprawl of 2015’s Morning/Evening. Downtempo nodders, beatless passages that flow into big bangers—he synthesizes all this into his most accessible listen since There is Love in You.
”Alap” opens the album gently with plucked strings, alluding to its definition in Indian classical music as “prologue to the formal expression” of a raga. But as those glissading strings carry on into “Two Thousand and Seventeen,” Hebden yokes it to a beat that very closely recalls Rounds’ centerpiece, “Unspoken.” The opening third of New Energy hews to that album’s sensibilities, highlighting wistful and evocative melodies with breaks crunching beneath them. But despite Hebden’s look back, the strummed strings are more nimble here and the textures are more detailed.
Tempos notch upwards on early standout “Lush,” the gamelan-like tones and double-time shaker providing the velocity as Hebden strikes a balance between new age chill and dance-floor quickener. That mixture of extremes makes “You Are Loved” another clear highlight. The luminous drones at the start are folded into the sort of dusty break that defined so many early records on Stones Throw. But as Hebden dashes in an array of squiggles and blats, the track changes shape again into something heady and electronic, spacy and gravity-free. At times, his attention to textures comes at the cost of exploring new terrain. The wordless female voices and saxophones swirling around “Scientists” add new sonic wrinkles but don’t punch through into a revelatory new space.
New Energy’s back half toggles between the type of club tracks that have become his forte (“SW9 9SL”) and interludes that give a breather before the next workout (“10 Midi”). It’s a shame that “10 Midi” lasts just under a minute-and-a-half, as its interplay between metallophone, piano, and bowed cello create a neo-classical restraint that remains one of the few places Hebden hasn’t explored. Same goes for the pure ambient waves of “Gentle Soul,” which flows into anthemic closer “Planet.” With its mix of carillon overtones, flickering strings, minced voices, and hiccuping garage thump, it suggests the very place where Steve Reich’s studied minimalism might meet adventurous bass music.
The heart of the album occurs a few moments prior on “Daughter,” which again recalls Rounds. The tock of snare and bass drum, a vocal loop that just slips beyond comprehension, a dreamlike melody twinkling in the middle of it all—it hooks you while at the same time escapes your grasp. Four years ago, Hebden spoke about why his album Rounds remained a touchstone for all the music that came after: “I really connected with the idea that I needed to make something more personal, something real that counted. I started to give the songs titles that were a little more personal to me.” It’s hard to think of something more evocative than a father naming a piece of music for his daughter, a relationship that—no matter the passage of time—requires one to always remain present, giving, and open to something new.
Andy Beta / Pitchfork
