Overview

Four Tet is the project of Kieran Hebden.

Release Rating
Rounds (2003) 7.5

Rounds

Arrangement? Magestic:

  • The album opens with Hands, which features jazz-like percussion. The dissonant drums and a syncopated piano sample eventually converge into one another, creating a lead melody, over which several more piano loops are added. Towards the middle there is a bit of scratching, in the fashion of DJ Shadow or The Avalanches. After creating a bittersweet melody, each sample slowly detaches from the lead melody, and finally the lead piano and the syncopated drums diverge. It’s the natural counterpart of Boards of Canada’s Music has the Right to Children from 1998.

  • Much down to earth and IDM-esque She Moves She is a play between a xylophone and a corrupted, Eastern-sounding guitar loop, both over a steady drum pattern.

  • My Angel Rocks Back and Forth is faux trip-hop. Instead of vocals, there is an elongated and distorted, harmonized and overlayed harp, which simulates the human vocal range. The characteristic trip-hop percussion is emulated by a two-part, corrupted sample.

  • Spirit Hands is urgent in delivery. A cascading sample of malfunctioning toy-like sounds is the protagonist in this song. Behind it is a storm of xylophones. A one-note drumming pattern stands in awe behind it all.

  • Unspoken, the highlight, puts in show Hebden’s most characteristic trait during the runtime of the album. organic manipulation of textures. It is not the “instruments” he uses (all sounds in the album are samples), but rather the arrangement of thereof. Nowhere is this more clearly than in the 9-minute mesh of ‘‘real” trip hop (0:00 - 3:04); and noise rock and free jazz (but played by a mosquito) (4:52 - 6:00). Perhaps a re-imagination of Portishead?

  • The upbeat As Serious As Your Life is notably more grounded on IDM (a clear influence is DJ Shadow’s Number Song). A groovy bass works alongside a drum sequence, reshaping in the way. And They Look Broken Hearted sounds like an arranged free jazz session, but instead of live instrumentation, it’s a set of drums “improvising” over an equally randomized sample. Slow Jam is very wholesome and upbeat. The samples of squeaky toys add to its childish, immature mood.

Rounds is a watered-down, perhaps simplified approach to IDM. Sometimes wholesome and beautiful, sometimes intense and glitchy, this album was an interesting entry in the IDM repertoire.