Four Tet
By Brian Moore
Monday. Aug 01, 1:00 AM
live at Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA) July 6th, 2005.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has worked hard to bring itself out of its dry modernist past and propel into hipper territory with an ambitious expansion plan for a larger contemporary art collection and a music calendar that is chock full of progressive artists on the cutting edge of music. So the art museum was a fitting venue on this rainy night for an artist such as Kieran “Four Tet” Hebden who mixes free jazz, folk, and post-rock (see his old band Fridge) with hip-hop inspired cut-and-paste sampling. His unique synergy of organic and electronic instrumentation has found him collaborative and remix work with artists such as Radiohead, Doves, Beth Orton, Kings Of Convenience, Prefuse 73, Madvillain, Madlib and his good buddy Caribou. Hebden has also garnered acclaim and notice from critics, indie rockers, and hip-hoppers alike with stellar albums in 2001’s Pause and 2003’s Rounds. This stop in Boston is his first as part of a brief Stateside tour in support of his most recent album Everything Ecstatic: a record that is more up-tempo and happier than his previous offerings, but continues to show the man’s love and facility for big beats, glitch-tronics, and free jazz.

Hebden took the stage rather sheepishly before a sizable crowd that consisted of an odd mixture of college kids, curious museum-going families, and cultural dilettantes: only the true fans would still be here at the end of the night. Given the inclement weather, the originally scheduled outdoor show was moved into the museum’s sterile Remis Auditorium with an inclined lecture hall seating structure that immediately stifled any sense of communal purpose and put ol’ Four Tet in a virtual Petri dish. He took one look up at the audience and smiled nervously, taken back at the weight of the audience’s glare and echoing applause. On stage, Hebden had the countenance of a wide-eyed savant professor, but as he turned on his two laptops and shot out bursts of noise, he immediately took on a meditative calm.

After a brief intro of clashing bits of compressed digital glitches and violent feedback, he started into “A Joy,” the first track from Everything Ecstatic. He built up a cacophony of crashing cymbals, bells, and tape loops as the oscillating bass line powered through the mix accompanied by hand claps and a phased guitar sample – Hebden went from laptop to mixer/mixer to laptop with the look of surgical precision. He followed that up with the “Hands” off of Rounds: beneath cascading sheets of noise and feedback, a gorgeous piano arpeggio and a staggered trip-hop beat emerged. The crowd began to show signs of life and familiarity, but Hebden quickly disrupted the crowd pleasing by cutting-up and remixing the arpeggio and retrofitting it to the time signature… this came off as disorienting at first, but his modulation of the arpeggio was ingenious. “Spirit Fingers” followed as the track that escaped most of the intervening improvisation, though the ambient shuffle beat and acoustic harmonics sounded amazingly full-bodied coming through the speakers. He segued into “Turtle Up Turtle Up” from the new album, which started with a Moog-ish synth sound and spastic jazz drum rolls that led into a propulsive Krautrock drumbeat. Hebden got deep into drum sampling here, expanding the otherwise short track into a long drum n’ bass cut up. He closed with the powerful yet solemn slow groove of “My Angel Rocks Back and Forth,” again trying to subvert the prettiness of the track with some harsh knob tweaking, counterpoint melodies, and screeching tape loops. Throughout, Hebden seemed locked in an intractable state of focus and thought as he stared into the blue light of his laptops.

At points, Hebden got a bit carried away with all of knob tweaking in between tracks, but it proved effective in the way they led into the lead tracks. Moreover, it showed his ability to rework and remix complex and disparate parts on the fly. Some audience members apparently had problems sticking it through the performance, as people to the left and right of me made for the exits right around “Turtle Up Turtle Up.” Perhaps it was the Museum’s description of Four Tet that attracted the uninitiated and literal minded: one mention of “hip-hop” and “indie rock” and people expect those things exactly. Perhaps they wanted him to simply play his recordings verbatim? They don’t see a man who as much love and have affinity for diverse artists like Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, and John Cage. I think a visual backdrop with some syncopated imagery would have benefited and enhanced the overall viewing experience, as the museum proved to feel a bit too academic or lofty. Nevertheless, Four Tet is one of the most exciting progressive electronic artists today and his live show is definitely worth checking out.

Opening for Four Tet was Boson’s own psychedelic sound artists Sunburned Hand Of The Man. The eight-piece outfit has toured with Four Tet before, yet to no surprise seems to fall below the radar of Boston’s provincial music press. Their label, Eclipse Records, is based in Arizona after all. Without deliberation or pause, they delved into the recesses of the collective unconscious with slow and enveloping explorations of random instrumentation set against walls of wailing feedback and synth sounds. Band members emptied crates of percussive found objects onto the floor and over the cymbals as the guitarists plucked minimally and even used their guitars/amps as percussive instruments. At points, the accidental sounds nuanced with an assertive bass line and staggered drum beats conjured up maddening desert-like soundscapes: these were moments of true shamanistic unison. The band also incorporated some performance art and irreverent props like a toy snake and a hilariously bad portrait that was appropriately sacrificed on stage. One of Boston’s true and finest art rock bands: check them out when you can.
www.fourtet.net

Brian Moore

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