Perhaps the definitive indie electronic artist,
Four Tet (
Kieran Hebden) is a British DJ and producer whose experimental yet highly accessible recordings, which blend organic and electronic sounds, have earned widespread acclaim from critics and fans of electronic music as well as indie rock.
Hebden's work as
Four Tet has been influenced by a wide range of genres, including spiritual jazz, Krautrock, folk music, and hip-hop. His compositions are generally abstract yet melodically and tonally rich, and they often combine glitchy electronics with acoustic instrumentation. While most of his earlier work, including 2003's heavily praised
Rounds, was generally downtempo or midtempo, he's embraced dance music more thoroughly since the late 2000s, particularly genres such as U.K. garage and house. Albums such as 2013's
Beautiful Rewind reflected the influence of pirate radio culture, and some of his singles, particularly 2019's "Only Human," have become inescapable club and festival hits. Indicative of
Hebden's eclectic nature, he has collaborated with artists ranging from jazz drummer
Steve Reid to
Radiohead's
Thom Yorke, and has produced albums by improv collective
Sunburned Hand of the Man and Syrian dabke singer
Omar Souleyman, among others.
Hebden, a native of London's Putney district, first became known as the guitar player for
Fridge, an instrumental group he co-founded with childhood friends
Adem Ilhan and
Sam Jeffers in 1995. Mixing rock instrumentation with electronics, the group's textural, rhythmic music earned comparisons to post-rock acts such as
Tortoise and
Tarwater. The band released several acclaimed albums and EPs on
Trevor Jackson's Output Recordings and eventually Go! Beat. The former label also issued
Hebden's debut solo release (as 4T Recordings), the 1997 single "Double Density," while the latter released "Falken's Maze," a 1998 single produced under the moniker Joshua Falken.
Hebden debuted his
Four Tet project with the 1998 single Thirtysixtwentyfive, a lengthy, jazzy mood piece.
Four Tet's debut full-length, Dialogue, appeared in early 1999, and later in the year his remix of the opening track of
Aphex Twin's
Selected Ambient Works, Vol. II was included on Warp's Warp 10+3: Remixes compilation, giving him further exposure.
Four Tet collaborated with
Rothko on the Rivers Become Oceans single, released by Lo Recordings, and a split EP with
Pole followed on Leaf in 2000.
Four Tet signed to Domino, which issued his second album,
Pause, in 2001. The album featured more prominent usage of acoustic guitars than his previous work, leading the press to dub his sound "folktronica." During the same year,
Hebden started an independent label called Text Recordings, debuting with the first EP by electro-folk songwriter
Koushik, in addition to releasing
Fridge's fourth album,
Happiness. Following the EPs
Paws, No More Mosquitoes, and The Weight of My Words (with
Kings of Convenience),
Four Tet released the single "I'm on Fire" in 2002. This preceded the heavily sample-based 2003 full-length
Rounds, which became
Hebden's breakthrough album, earning widespread critical acclaim and eventually appearing on numerous year-end (and decade-end) lists.
Four Tet opened for
Radiohead on their European tour, and subsequently remixed their song "Scatterbrain." Following a split single with noise rock band
Hella and the May 2004 release of an EP built around
Rounds highlight "My Angel Rocks Back and Forth,"
Four Tet compiled a volume of the
LateNightTales mix series.
In 2005,
Hebden began collaborating with free jazz drummer
Steve Reid, eventually touring together and releasing several albums of improvised music.
Four Tet's fourth full-length, the upbeat, joyous
Everything Ecstatic, appeared during the same year, as did
Everything Ecstatic, Pt. 2, which consisted of a DVD containing videos for all of the album's tracks, plus a CD EP of additional material. The year 2006 saw the release of the double-CD collection Remixes, which included one disc of
Hebden's takes on tracks by artists ranging from
Madvillain to
His Name Is Alive to
Sia, as well as a disc of
Four Tet tracks as remixed by
J Dilla,
Battles,
Sa-Ra Creative Partners, and others.
Four Tet's volume of !K7's DJ-Kicks series appeared in 2006 as well.
Hebden released albums with
Reid (Tongues) and
Fridge (
The Sun) in 2007, resuming work as
Four Tet with 2008's
Ringer, a four-song EP of hypnotic minimal techno tracks. He continued in this direction with 2009's haunting Moth 12", a collaboration with elusive dubstep producer
Burial. A single titled "Love Cry" appeared at the end of the year, and the full-length There Is Love in You was released by Domino in early 2010. By far the most club-friendly
Four Tet full-length yet, the album was another critical and commercial success. Later in the year,
Hebden released a split 12" with dubstep pioneer
Mala on Soul Jazz Records, and played keyboards on
Laurie Anderson's song "Only an Expert."
In 2011,
Four Tet released his third mix CD, Fabriclive.59. He continued releasing low-key singles on Text, including a split release with
Daphni (aka
Dan Snaith, whose Caribou Vibration Ensemble featured
Hebden) and Ego / Mirror, a collaboration with
Burial and
Thom Yorke. The 2012 release
Pink compiled several of these singles.
Hebden also occasionally released more stripped-down, club-focused singles as
Percussions and
KH.
Four Tet's seventh full-length, a tribute to pirate radio culture titled
Beautiful Rewind, appeared in 2013. He also released 0181, a single 38-minute piece consisting of various non-album tracks recorded between 1997 and 2001.
Following remix EPs and collaborations and split singles with
Rocketnumbernine,
Martyn, and
Terror Danjah,
Four Tet released
Morning/Evening, a full-length consisting of two 20-minute tracks, in 2015. After its release,
Hebden and
Floating Points produced dance-pop singer
Katy B's song "Calm Down," and
Hebden produced a "club version" of
Jamie xx's "SeeSaw." Collaborations with Designer and Champion also appeared on Text that year. In 2017,
Four Tet released
New Energy, a full-length that found him partially revisiting his earlier downtempo sound on tracks like "Two Thousand and Seventeen," in addition to atmospheric house numbers like "SW9 9SL" and "Planet." He issued several archival live sets in 2018 and 2019, and released a bevy of singles in 2019, including "Anna Painting" and "Only Human," a
Nelly Furtado-sampling house track which had become a ubiquitous festival anthem, leading to an official release by
Ministry of Sound. "Baby," featuring guest vocals by
Ellie Goulding, was released in early 2020. The song was included on
Four Tet's full-length
Sixteen Oceans, which appeared in March. ~ Paul Simpson