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Avg: 4.5 (67 ratings)
- Date Released: May 6, 2003
- Genre: Electronic
- Style: Abstract
- Label: Domino Recording Co
The laptop-folk-jazz of your digital dreams.
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We Say...
2003's Rounds represents the perfect synthesis of Four Tet's — aka Kieran Hebden's — multiple and seemingly irreconcilable musical loves. Hebden's instrument is the computer, yet here he finds a way of feeding into it those most machine-unfriendly of contrasting genres, free jazz and folk. Previously, he had been accused of picking and mixing elements from his record collection. On Rounds, however, he creates a matrix of activity, in which the computer dices, filters and figures out impossible loops and pulses; the jazz elements maintain their jamming spontaneity and insistence on the right here, right now, and the beautiful folk elements maintain their absent reverie. It's some achievement. There's scarcely a duff or lazily repeated moment here amid these hanging sound gardens of fast-fingered gamelan waterfalls, broken beats and unexpected injections of musique concrete. Particularly outstanding, however, are the diaphanous "Spirit Fingers," the controlled, digital frenzy of "Hands" and the stately, episodic "My Angel Rocks Back and Forth."
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They Say...
For his solo projects, Fridge's Kieran Hebden is a lo-fi experimentalist who, had he been recording 15 years ago, would've been cranking out songs on a four-track recorder instead of a laptop. As demonstrated on his third record, Rounds, he's one of the few musicians capturing all the promise inherent in computer science -- being able to summon, manipulate, and mix any sound imaginable. The record offers something to nearly every audience that could approach it, with a bit of a groove for electronic fans, an obtuse sense of music-making for experimentalists, and a dreamy melodicism sure to endear it to indie-pop fans. The opener, "Hands," is especially breathtaking; it begins with a few seconds of drum samples, surgically inserted and ill-timed, but opens into a warm, melodic production with a simple frame-kit beat outlining Hebden's guitar-and-keyboard atmospherics. "My Angel Rocks Back and Forth" features a music-box melody playing against softly shaded backmasked guitar and a subdued, grating percussion line reminiscent of an iron lung. The nine-minute "Unspoken" alternates guitar and piano playing the same beatific melody, over another simple beat and tambourine claps. Though Rounds is experimental by nature, Kieran Hebden's gift for melody and emotional shading allows his records to be enjoyed by an audience wider than merely experimental listeners.
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You Say...
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| 01. |  |
Hands |
5:41 |  |
| 02. | |
She Moves She |
4:41 | |
| 03. | |
First Thing |
1:13 | |
| 04. | |
My Angel Rocks Back and Forth |
5:07 | |
| 05. | |
Spirit Fingers |
3:22 | |
| 06. | |
Unspoken |
9:31 | |
| 07. |
Chia |
0:32 | |
|
| 08. | |
As Serious as Your Life |
4:48 | |
| 09. | |
And They All Look Broken Hearted |
5:09 | |
| 10. | |
Slow Jam |
5:18 | |
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Credits
- Matt Cooper - Layout Design // Four Tet - Main Performer // Kieran Hebden - Producer // Kieran Hebden - Producer // Jason Evans - Photography
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