Kieran Hebden, the quiet force behind the synthesizers of Four Tet, rejects any notion of a singular path to releasing music in 2013. He doesn’t press release sneak peeks at singles or drop teasers for videos. Four Tet pares it down to the basics: Here’s an album I’ve made. It will be released soon. That’s all you need to know. No hype, no tricks.

For his latest, Beautiful Rewind, Hebden posted that the record would have “no pre‐order, no Youtube trailers, no iTunes stream, no Spotify, no Amazon deal, no charts, no Bitcoin deal, and no last minute Rick Rubin.”

Hebden’s music is entirely his own, reflective of both his refusal to adhere to any linear narrative of what it means to be an artist in the digital age and an immense talent for pairing disparate elements in a cohesive manner.

Beautiful Rewind echoes the ephemeral aspects of jungle, the infectious rush of the new, the patter of voices through radio static, rather than the functional signifiers—quickening tempos, mangled break beats—that defined it.

The album serves as a compact, romantic remembrance: prettier, milder, and less funky than its inspiration. It also feels very personal, like these moments are Hebden's own recollections, his own tangential relationship with a subculture.

Beautiful Rewind borrows without apology from a trend but sounds undeniably like a Four Tet record. Jungle, with its mighty musical appetite and don't‐give‐a‐fuck sampling culture, might be a nice fit for Four Tet, whose music has always relied heavily on samples.

Review:

Kieran Hebden's first proper Four Tet album since 2010's There Is Love in You, Beautiful Rewind follows a string of short-form releases that included collaborations with Burial, Thom Yorke, and Rocketnumbernine, in addition to singles issued on the producer's Text label. It consists of concise, stylistically scattered tracks that are alternately pretty and scuffed up, with the latter quality notably inspired by garage, grime, and funk aired on U.K. pirate radio stations. Rough breakbeats, jacking thumps, and MC and vocalist samples are laced throughout certain tracks, ranging from the jumbled opener “Gong” to the hypnotic closer “Your Body Feels,” where a snippet from 112's Slim and ominous keyboard melodies and textures are eventually joined by stark bass-drum hits and claps. Those who go to Hebden for home-listening ambient material get it through the swirling “Ba Teaches Yoga,” the fluttering “Crush,” and the pattering sprites streaked across “Unicorn.” One highlight, “Aerial,” rugged/frantic and spangly/serene, fuses both approaches with astounding finesse. On “Buchla,” the sampled MC probably isn't shouting out the synthesizer pioneer checked in the title, but he sounds close enough (“burgler?”), and the track is among Hebden's rawest, most physical work. While the album does seem rather patched together with a lack of focus – it plays out like a pair of distinct EPs and a couple transitional orphans on shuffle – there's an irrefutable charm to the restlessness.
All Music Guide – Andy Kellman