four tet - rounds
if you've heard of this and read up on it then you'll know that the reviews have been consistently gushing.
well, unfortunately, so is this one.
not having heard kieran hebdens previous efforts i have no idea wether this is a continuation of previous releases, or, a whole new direction. what i do know, is, that by the fifth play this album was doing things i never expected.
the music is rooted in hiphop beats and downtempo atmospherics created on a now-famous laptop (i have looked for the magic "laptop music" button on my old thinkpad but so far been rather unlucky). the music is electronic music, but not as you know it if you have followed the electronica path of recent years.
where a lot of electronica strives to create music out of sounds generated from within the guts of a cold hearted machines, kieran uses his technotoys to make completely natural, warm, organic sounds. this is why the album is so pleasant to take as a complete entity. deep warm basslines interact with full warm ambience. but, that doesn't mean its horizontal listening muzak. the music requires concentration and interaction from the listener, not a snoozefest.
admittedly, the first few listens i didn't hear what all the fuss was about, but somehow the melodies and the sheer flow of the album got its claws under my ears. mainly due to the albums centrepiece, 'unspoken', with its melancholy piano loop and laidback grooves recalling the glory days of dj shadows work but without the cut-n-paste extras that shadow uses to root his sounds to the hiphop underground.
this track alone could become an advertising execs dream and keep kieran in laptop software for years to come. other tracks incorporate extra sonic twists and turns with some lovely clicks and bleeps within the structures, but they are never overly disorientating, thus expanding the listeners tolerance and possibly introducing listeners to the concept that computers can make a totally different type of music.
i suspect that kieran is aiming at subverting the middle ground.
this is not a difficult album to fall in love with.
even fans of coldplay could be captured by the charms held within, double this up with the recent pedro album and you will have nearly two hours of the finest electronic music of recent times.