
Rounds – Four Tet
According to Neil Young and then St Etienne ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’. I’m prepared to bet a rather large bag of doughnuts that Neil Young has never listened to ‘My Angel Rocks Back and Forth’ by Four Tet. That folks with break your heart into two very even and symmetrical parts and leave you weeping like a lovesick puppy, on the kitchen floor.
My Angel Rocks Back and Forth – Four Tet (2003, Domino Records)
It is simply one of the most beautiful pieces of music you will ever hear. It is essentially a ballad with no words, that chimes and tinkles away at your senses. It is led by that most post rock of instruments, a harp, which is plucked (or in this case I imagine, sampled) away sweetly while a scratchy beat whispers alongside it. Its marvellous in a “man I must stop chopping onions whilst listening to this track kind of way”.
As marvellous as it is, ‘My Angel Rocks Back and Forth’ isn’t even the best track on this album. For that you have to look at ‘As Serious as your Life’ which blends Tibetan chimes, strings, acoustic guitars and then mutates them all together until it sounds like nothing on earth. Its utterly unique and utterly amazing.
As Serious as your Life – Four Tet (2003, Domino Records)
That’s the thing with ‘Rounds’ it’s unique. There is simply nothing that sounds anything like it. Here stands a record that was recorded, mixed and probably produced on a laptop, and it sounds otherworldly, timeless, heartfelt and incredible. A record that was so hard to pigeonhole that the NME created an entirely new genre for it and then immediately made Four Tet the flagbearers for that scene. They called it ‘Folktronica’, though it was quickly, like, nearly all of the other scenes that the NME invented, ignored. ‘Rounds’ is a dance record, simple as that. It’s just a dance record that you don’t want to dance to, because you want to listen to its intricate beauty, the way harps mix with hip hop beats, or the way that weird noises merge together to make a noise like no instrument on earth should sound like.
She Move She – Four Tet (2003, Domino Records)
I can see why they coined the genre ‘Folktronica’ though, it is an album heavily influenced by folk music. But its also an album influenced by hip hop (‘She Moves She’ clearly has its roots set in hip hop) and R & B. But ultimately it’s the uniqueness that sets this aside, ‘Spirit Fingers’ for instance, mixes perfectly a violin led jig against what sounds like a house beat, its insane but it makes you giddy with its hypnotising brilliance.
Spirit Fingers – Four Tet (2003, Domino Records)