Four Tet – There Is Love In You

This CD is brilliant and timeless, for sure. "Love Cry" - is one of the deepest and sexiest track in Four Tet's discografy.
Love it!!!

This album is extremely well produced and sounds very good. But I can't help feeling sad about Four Tet's new danceable approach. His music is no longer wonderfully contemplative as it used to be. There is nothing wrong in changing direction, but I feel sorry to see more and more talented composers going to the upbeat 4/4 direction. It seems that the drop in record sales forces producers to do more and more live shows, and they often succomb to this new challenge; making people dance. Music doesn't have to make you physically move to be infectious.

I it that this is more a statement than a review, but I thought this album really reflects very well this new reality.

Glitchy vocals, tinkling guitar arpeggios, funk/house drums, burbling synths, cut-up melodies... yes, this is a Four Tet album as we've come to know them. Hebden can produce, make no mistake, and hell I find it hard to dislike a piece like This Unfolds with its twinking synthage above subtle guitar twangs and downbeat drums. Plastic People even becomes pretty rousing, more 4/4 drums and thick percussion beneath synth warmth, distant vocal chants, and more twinkling melodies (this time from a glockenspiel, or at least a layered synth equivalent). I don't get Love Cry, though. It's 8 minutes too long, it takes far, far too much time to develop into a "Wolf Cub" style atmosphere but there's no real hook until the 7th minute. In fact when all the drums disappear, and the cut up guitar comes back in, it becomes strikingly pretty. I wish we didn't have to go through 8 minutes of the same damn groove to get to it, though. The vocals are clearly supposed to riff off Burial's style, but they produce atmosphere, not a hook. Oops.

If there are any hooks to find in these songs, they're buried deep, if they're there at all. Hebden is still a master of pleasant synths-merged-with-post-rockian-guitar atmospheres, from a production point of view. But nothing sticks, There Is Love In You still falls foul of the same problem his previous albums have: too pleasant, nothing stands out.

EXCEPT! Now, after 45 minutes of plodding deep-house glitchery, we come across the inexplicably placed hidden track which is ... a psyche-folk-rock piece? And Kieran sings? To oboes? Strains of piano? Real bass? Hell, there's even a pop hook in "I Miss You", when massed Hebdens cry all at once. The again folksy guitar picking is vibrant and propels the song well. And I'm left stunned. Stunned that Kieran doesn't write an album of THIS stuff instead, when it's clearly superior to the rest of the songs. As I said, inexplicable.

Edit: Watch the deep-house and IDM fanatics hit that disagree button, everyone! If it isn't obvious, I'm not hating on this album, but it's patchy when it's not enjoyable.

So, Four Tet then. I understand Four Tet, but I have to say that I don't really 'get' Four Tet anymore. I understand exactly why he exists, exactly what he does and why it attracts people, and why this is important for music. It seems to me that he's directly in between people who veer towards electronic music, and those who prefer instrument based music. This is hardly surprising considering the sound pallet he's used since the entire conception of this project has remained universally unchanged, barring a few minor tweaks here and there stylistically. And I'll be one to fully it that in the past I was very into what I was hearing. Being someone who adored electronic music and all its forms and shied away from guitars for many years, his work along with Hood's 'Cold House' album and a few others, helped bridge that gap, and this is important despite personal taste.

Since then, I've accepted guitar based music and embraced it, looking for the most forward thinking, accessible, weird, crazy 'full-band' music I could get my hands on. It could be droning post-rock, screeching noise, simple indie pop both obscure and popular, it doesn't matter; I wanted to hear it. I've continued my love of electronic music, diving deeper into areas I all but ignored in the past, going back and moving forward. So I went back to Four Tet expecting the best because it contained both facets that I enjoyed, but was surprised when it did nothing for me. It just seemed to...exist complacently maybe. It ebbs and flows along nicely sure, sounding beautiful without trying too hard, interesting without going overboard, and while people seem to be content thinking of this as a unique bonus, I can't help but feel this is a negative with each album he subsequently releases. This one is no exception to me.

On 'There Is Love In You' (uh, that title is serious?), it contains everything he has ever done in the history of his entire musical career, once again repeated with a slight stylistic change, this change being 'dance'. So you have your Four Tet staples: Floaty guitar and tones with very room oriented production--simulated or otherwise--and slight synthetic elements, only this time fed through a tech-house arrangement on a number of tracks. And the results are, like every Four Tet album; interesting, entirely pleasant with a bit of 'moodiness', forward thinking to a degree, and overall solid if-you-are-looking-for-that-sorta-thing (I'm not, I found that 10 years ago and don't need to hear it all the time). There are highlights and unfortunate blemishes, though fans who have zero criticism of even their most cherished of artists will say otherwise.

I might not get any friends by saying this, but 'Angel Echoes' is one of the worst tracks I've heard by him, so apologies to those who find it brilliant but it couldn't be more off the mark if it tried. I think everyone caught a vocal-cut bug from Burial and started getting really sloppy about it (and before you scream murder upon me, I love Burial to death), which can either be amazing or just sluggish and weird. The beginning of 'Love Cry' sounds pretty excellent, very tense and it's build works great, but then a entirely mono synth comes in with sloppy vocal cuts and its difficult to keep the prior momentum going in my head. 'Sing' also starts out very nicely, but again elements come in that are hard to get excited about. And the rest, although nice in spots, does not stand out much to me, though I wouldn't call it bad.

I want to make this clear: I'm not looking for things to hate just to talk about it. I gave this album, along with every other album he's done, the benefit of the doubt because I do truly think he's talented. So this is reaction, nothing more. I'm not going to go as far and say that I wouldn't recommend this album, because I do think spots of it are good. And if you are not bothered by the elements I'm bothered by, then this album could be everything you've hoped for. But Four Tet's insistence on straddling the line has and will continue to bore me, and I would wish he became more adventurous. He's a talented artist for sure, but he needs a change. A bigger change.