s w e e t b e a t s
april.10.2001 - #561
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artist : Four Tet
album : Glasshead
year : 1999
label : Ourput Records
genre : Lo-Fi
catalogue : OPR24
quality : CD 192k HQ True Stereo
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01.Glasshead 11:26
02.Calamine (Radio Mix) 07:52
02 tracks | 19:18 mins | 26,5 MB
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This 12" blew me away when I first heard it, yet I discover more
each time I listen. It's at once fresh, accessible, aimed squarely
at the dancefloor, and yet deep, complex, musically rich and
beautifully constructed. Kieran Hebden's musical education seems to
have consisted of simply listening to a vast range of quality
music, though where this might lead some to a reductive,
trainspotterish pursuit of a nonexistent vanishing point, Hebden
has emerged with an ever-more inquisitive and open-minded approach.
When I spoke to him a few months ago, Kieran was excitedly talking
up his recent acquisition of two second-hand records: spoken-word
hokum horoscopes, and a woman who created and played her own glass
percussion! These records seem to surface again here, the
Criswell-like horoscope introducing Glasshead, and curiously sharp
frequency bursts, presumably glass, surfacing from the heady brew
across both tunes. Glasshead is stunning. Played loud it's
irresistible, an awe-inspiring groove, drums breaking unexpectedly
and gloriously over insistent basslines, with a melange of
ECM-style synth-brass welded to jazzier horns and Indian samples
repurposed from his album, finishing up with an electro twist which
really pulls the rug from under the listener. Calamine (Radio Mix)
is, if anything, even more intense. The sheer layering of sound
becomes almost overwhelming half-way through, as this radical
reworking of a track from 'Dialogue' introduces insane levels of
disparate found sounds over its thunderous house backbeat. Release
from this eventually oppressive juggernaut is provided by suddenly
clearing the decks and skittering across sampled radio frequencies
(hence the title), alighting briefly on various pirate radio
stations playing speed garage, before emerging into Hebden's own
version of garage, brutal and uncompromising, yet with shakuhachi
flute (sounding like Goro Yamaguchi's A Bell Ringing In The Empty
Sky) and tuned-percussion providing delicate counterpoint. Hebden
just keeps getting better, and he and his collaborators (as well as
Fridge's fantastic Eph album and Of EP, his recent collaboration
with Rothko is worth getting too) are now producing quality music
across such a wide range of genres that anything short of global
recognition of their efforts seems less than fair.
--motion.state51.co.uk
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s w e e t b e a t s
we're all about juweeltjes.
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greetings to klangwerk, mgc, sour, dh, impg & sfe
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