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Four Tet: Kieran Hebden.
Originally created as a side-project from his group Fridge, Kieran Hebden's solo work as Four Tet has explored cutting edge electronica using source material from jazz, folk, and field recordings. His 2001 effort, PAUSE, explicitly borrows from the rich sonic firmament of '70s acoustic-based, instrumental music. Applying a dizzying array sample-driven manipulations and other DSP processes, Hebden utilizes his computer, not so much as an editing tool, but an improvisational instrument in its own right--summoning improbable electro-acoustic textures that appear to live and breathe in the same auditory space.
Despite the music's computer-based origins, there are only subtle traces of its digital imprint in the album's gauzy, organic electronica. Loose, swinging drum beats, at once reference jazz and R&B; their lithe flams and fills accenting found sounds that seem to lurch furtively from some sonic void. On the opener, "Glue To The World," detuned guitars and zithers wrap a percussive tapestry around a somber melodic figure, in a gorgeous blend of ECM style ambient jazz and downtempo hip-hop. On the more straight-ahead upbeat groove of "Everything Is All right," Hebden jettisons the more slippery sample manipulations for a hypnotic piano melody. The oddest track of the set is the sole vocal number "No More Mosquitoes," an elliptical hip-hop beat livened up by noisy synth squiggles. The track is a veritable analogue bubble bath, with swirling, random oscillations gurgling under a loop of a child singing "no, no, no, no more mosquitoes." Breathtaking in scope and shear experimental audaciousness, PAUSE turns on its head the artificial separation between instrumental and computer music, and creates enigmatic psychedelic trickery in the process.