Four Tet
Rounds
Release Date: May 6, 2003
Genre(s): Indie, Electronic
Record label: Domino
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Album Review: Rounds by Four Tet
Absolutly essential, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 5/5
It's never easy to retain your status as a pioneer. Think of the way Massive Attack and Portishead patented a sound, only to find it had become aural wallpaper. Kieran Hebden's first album as Four Tet digitised his love of free jazz. His second, Pause, birthed "folktronica", a conflation of broken beats and fragile acoustics that, in many ways, became the new trip-hop.
Opinion: Fantastic
Since 1999, Kieran Hebden’s Four Tet project has functioned as a neat parallel to his main squeeze, the great British post-rock trio Fridge. Whereas that group focuses mainly on various rock prefixes (think Kraut- and post-), Hebden’s solo joints have thus far been trickier beasts. His debut long-player (the stunning Dialogue) took much of its influence and direction from funk, soul, and cosmic jazz.