four tet - everything ecstatic
having kick started the genre that became known as folktronica kieran hebden for his latest album drops all the acoustic guitar pleasantness of 'rounds' and makes a full on trash metal album.
well ok, not quite.
but, this time round he has definitely upped the intensity of the beats and avoided all the associations of the folktronica tag once and for all. so be warned, before plumping up your hard earned i would check out the opening track 'a joy' to see whether this album is for you, with a large fuzz bass noise dominating throughout, and a massive jazz drum beat pushing the track forward then this sets the scene for the next 40 minutes brilliantly, that is prior to the track descending into the final minute of distortion and chaos. sounds like someone has been listening to old school on-u soundsystem records. and "hurrah for that" i say. for those that find the opening a little too intense next up is recent single 'smile around the face' which features the most simple of melodies looped and maintained throughout while drums clatter and add layers of structured midi'd fun .. and then comes the first 'oh wow' moment, at 3 minutes suddenly an extra layer of stereo phasing is set to max, which on headphones provides a total extra sensory trip, and rather special. the pace of the album is splintered, as well as the drum filled excess there are several short ambient pieces involving real world noises, but these don't really do anything special on the whole other than provide a gateway to the next proper track. so, instead let's just concentrate on the drum + funk of 'sun drums and soil', which is like some mad over the top dj shadow experiment with more of the live drums, 70's funky keyboards before a clarinet styled solo starts to be added to the mix, at which point i should start mentioning various improvisational jazz gurus, but as it's a genre i know little of, i cant. just be safe in the knowledge that this is a beat propelled monster, and not a chin stroking track.
then it's more gamelan styled ambience, before 'and then patterns' starts off with stripped down hip hop beats and some rather gorgeous piano harmonies making this the closest the album comes to the serenity of 'rounds', 'high fives' is also a more laid back affair with the glockenspiel being the start of the melody line (always an instrument i loved the sound of).
then we come to the main event of the album - the penultimate track 'sleep, eat food, have visions' - all 8 minutes of it. the track starts of all cool and funky with some classic acid house 303 noises and a very nice twang melody line (not on guitar), but slowly as more layers of melodies and noises are added the track progresses into a beat fuelled beast, involving several sonic twists and turns, before eventually mutating into a full on drum filled excess like some updated version of primal screams 'loaded' dubbed up experiments, i have read that keiran basically took every drum sample/sound and triggered this into the mix at some stage of this track .. and boy does it sound like that, this is excellent stuff.
i love the sheer madness of this track. a definite album highlight.
after a few listens it becomes obvious that Kieran has had a lot of fun making this album, it bursts with colour and vibrancy, and definitely provided me with a lot of smiles. and no, i am not going to use a cheesy pun on the word 'ecstatic'. not even i would do that.