Stealing beauty
Words can't bring
us down as Four Tet's Kieran Hebden goes another round, solo.
By Peter Nicholson
KIERAN HEBDEN'S THIRD album as Four Tet, Rounds
(Domino), hit me right in the chest, from my first listen. For once
I heard the music before the message-group buzz began to build,
and I was ready to chime in with my own superlatives when the usually
better-connected pundits began to weigh in. "Beautiful,"
that rather tired, nondescriptive descriptor, was the best I could
offer, because the slight tightening of my throat, the blurring
of my surroundings upon hearing Rounds' opening track, "Hands,"
is exactly the same response I have to beauty. There were no lyrics
to hem in or miscue my emotions, simply a few jerking drumrolls
and a glistening of guitars that triggered a visceral response.
Months later, Rounds still has the same effect, although
I expect it now, bracing myself for the brief rushes of mood that
accompany "Slow Jam" and "Unspoken."
Like Four Tet's first two albums, Dialogue (Output) and
Pause (Domino), Rounds was written and produced entirely
by Hebden on his computer. He's not categorically adverse to collaboration.
Since 1996 he has played guitar in Fridge, a post-rock trio that
has released several albums and survived a few successful tours.
But solitude is key to the sound of Four Tet, Hebden's solo project.
"Being able to work on music on my own is being able to have
complete control to see through my ideas without having to compromise,
and also being able to express yourself in a completely individual
way," he said on the phone from his home in London. "Because
it's on your own, it can be so intimate."
That intimacy is amplified as much by what Hebden leaves out as
by what he puts in. The bouncy, punchy fun of "She Moves She"
owes its catchy efficacy to the spaces left between beats and the
sparseness of its arrangement. Given its clean, hip-hop drums and
simple banjo loops, the listener expects lyrics that never arrive,
a typical, planned omission by Hebden. "You add lyrics or vocals
to music, and the listener hears the vocals, and it becomes like
50 percent of the music for a lot of the listeners," he explained.
"One of the things I'm interested in is what I can achieve
without that, so I can bring different ideas to the forefront and
bring those to people's attention.... The ideas I want to put forward
are a lot more delicate."
While "delicate" may be the perfect description of the
manner in which Hebden subtly manipulates and refines the banjo
sample on "She Moves She," the harsh contrast of jarring
electric guitar snatches midway through the piece is actually what
makes it work for him. "I had that banjo thing twinkling about,
and then I just, out of the blue, came up with that really mad,
aggressive sound," Hebden said. "Once I had that, the
track really came to life.... I like the idea of having something
calm and soothing and destroying it." Juxtaposition is tricky
business, however, and the insertion of a squeaky chew toy into
the gradual flow of "Slow Jam" nearly derails the track
with its too-cute, look-at-me aesthetic and points to a danger of
working in too much isolation.
'Hands' solo
Hebden's good friend Dan Snaith echoes his appreciation of working
alone. As Manitoba, Snaith has recently released his second album,
Up in Flames, also on Domino. Having moved to England from
Canada to pursue a Ph.D. in mathematics, Snaith now lives 10 minutes
away from Hebden, and the two often compare the fruits of their
solo labors, music that is informed by their past work with bands
and present use of computers. The friendship is a valuable tool
for feedback, Snaith said when I called him in London, adding that
it's easy to become too absorbed in an individual piece "because
I lose perspective on what I'm doing.... It's good to have him over
and say, 'That track's pretty good' or 'That track's the shittiest
I've ever heard.' "
Despite their close relationship, their similar disregard for whether
a source is live or sampled ("It all goes in the same hole
in the back of the computer," Snaith quipped), and their shared
record label, Snaith's and Hebden's records don't sound very similar.
As its name implies, Rounds explores repetition and
reveals Hebden's interest in folk music, while Up in Flames
alludes to Spacemen 3 and other rock influences. In contrast to
my immediate swoon over Rounds, my first play of Up in
Flames, with its swirling layers of guitar reverb and psychedelic
production, left me somewhat nonplussed. Then I picked up Up
in Flames again, much later, and its upbeat melodies an humming
snatches of lyrics, borne along on a sea of pounding drums, sank
in. I found myself wagging my head in time to the strummed chords
of "Jacknuggetted" and hitting Repeat again and again.
Waxing influential
Listening to Four Tet and Manitoba, it's tempting to wax poetic
about the convergence of rock and electronics, for both Hebden and
Snaith aren't shy about using guitars. But neither sees that amalgamation
as a goal. "I think everyone who hears this music and assumes
that's what I'm doing, [they] are either into dance music or rock
music, and they're trying to move sideways to kinda join them together,"
Hebden said. "I'd much rather try to move forwards, to say
that certain genres of music don't just have to have these certain
sounds."
In fact, fondness for guitars and drum kits notwithstanding, if
any one genre is a major influence on Hebden's recent work, it's
hip-hop. During the making of Rounds, Hebden listened to
Large Professor and A Tribe Called Quest, and the song structures
show a similar economy of form and keen appreciation of hooks, though
none of the braggadocio. Hebden keeps the composition simple, leaving
basic breakbeats bare for inspection as they start, stutter, and
stop while uncomplicated melodies acquire the inevitability of music-box
repetition. If Manitoba is a crazy best friend spilling his guts
to you at a bar, Four Tet is a vulnerable lover murmuring intimate
hopes as you curl beneath the sheets.
Hebden makes music that takes chances, opening himself up to the
occasional mistake but also giving listeners an opportunity to actually
be moved, to feel and not just listen. As he tours the states with
Manitoba this spring, audiences will get a chance to hear live what
already feels so immediate on the CD. The deadening weight of irony,
seemingly de rigueur for intelligent electronic music, is refreshingly
missing from Hebden's work, and he doesn't overestimate his importance,
keeping the album to 45 minutes while others cram 20 songs on a
disc. The result is a tight, memorable record that keeps your attention
from beginning to end, rather than a 70-minute compendium of the
past few years in the studio. Snaith's absence from Four Tet's upcoming
Bottom of the Hill show will be keenly felt – I'll miss the
flashes of giddiness brought on by his walls of guitar loops. I
can only hope it will leave more time for Hebden to share the twisting,
gorgeous world he created on Rounds.
Four Tet plays Thurs/5, 10 p.m., Bottom of the Hill,
1233 17th St., S.F. $8. (415) 321-4455.
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