This CD is brilliant and timeless, for sure. "Love Cry" - is one of the deepest and sexiest track in Four Tet's discografy.Love it!!!

love it too

This album is extremely well produced and sounds very good. But I can't help feeling sad about Four Tet's new danceable approach. His music is no longer wonderfully contemplative as it used to be. There is nothing wrong in changing direction, but I feel sorry to see more and more talented composers going to the upbeat 4/4 direction. It seems that the drop in record sales forces producers to do more and more live shows, and they often succomb to this new challenge; making people dance. Music doesn't have to make you physically move to be infectious. I admit that this is more a statement than a review, but I thought this album really reflects very well this new reality.

Well, I can't reply on all of this instantly. The discussion of what's 'pure' and what should stay 'pure' will never stop. So I'll leave that one for just a moment or I would even leave that up to you. Leaving the fact that it occupies me just as well. The only thing I do want to add to that is (while listening to a 10'' of Shackleton doing some sort of electro/breakbeat/dubstep/soundscape thing) that mucisians don't listen to the same kind of music all the time as well as their own listeners. So why should they keep stuck to just one sound?I think a mucisians like Four Tet wants to explore every border. And so he did with Burial, on two extremely great cuts! Check these one out and tell me what you think of those...I read an interview with FlyLo this summer where he said about his followers: ,,Go do your own thing''. There have been other times where music sounded alike. So, is this just the sound of today or easy rip-offs?But I agree fully when you'd speak about wanting to stick to your own instead of creating a sound someone else has just done.What's your opinion on the latest release by Caribou then?

I respect your explanations about what 'There is love in You' represents for you. Other albums like M.I.A.'s Kala are also very reprensentative of our times in different ways. But I guess that I might not be the only one who is uncomfortbable to see the intrusion of 'glamourous' element in leftfield music. From Akufen to Joker's recent productions, there is an increase in glittering disco sounds, superficial themes, chopped samples of R&B divas. While Four Tet calls it love (maybe cynically), I would rather describe it as hedonist. I could also mention other artists like Daft Punk, Goldfraap, Lone, Mount Kimbie and even Burial who also are using these types of sounds in different ways. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I just don't. But I have to admit that I don't like much the current trends, to be honnest. :)

Really said, I believe all experiences and their outings are being generilesed. That is, I think, because the sources we use around the world are becomming more the same as well as the way we use them. Especially the influence of social media creates a reality where you obtain the experiences of your "friends" on a constant basis. Everyone is being influenced by those channels more and more. And then the music market is being focused on a more global scale. Local music is fading out and it has to sound global. No one listens to just one or two kinds of music anymore. What comes out these days is a culmination of things. A sess pool if you will. Techniques and instruments are easily purchased and in a very easy enverinment.But, if done well as this Four Tet release, I think it resembles the sound of today very well and should be here as it is.

Yes and no. I actually enjoy some dance music. However, I dislike cultural homogenisation, which currently involves rock and dance music a little too much.

Probably you'll dislike electronic dance music in general? It's just way to superficial to say that dance elements could not lead to anything artistic.

Glitchy vocals, tinkling guitar arpeggios, funk/house drums, burbling synths, cut-up melodies... yes, this is a Four Tet album as we've come to know them. Hebden can produce, make no mistake, and hell I find it hard to dislike a piece like This Unfolds with its twinking synthage above subtle guitar twangs and downbeat drums. Plastic People even becomes pretty rousing, more 4/4 drums and thick percussion beneath synth warmth, distant vocal chants, and more twinkling melodies (this time from a glockenspiel, or at least a layered synth equivalent). I don't get Love Cry, though. It's 8 minutes too long, it takes far, far too much time to develop into a "Wolf Cub" style atmosphere but there's no real hook until the 7th minute. In fact when all the drums disappear, and the cut up guitar comes back in, it becomes strikingly pretty. I wish we didn't have to go through 8 minutes of the same damn groove to get to it, though. The vocals are clearly supposed to riff off Burial's style, but they produce atmosphere, not a hook. Oops.If there are any hooks to find in these songs, they're buried deep, if they're there at all. Hebden is still a master of pleasant synths-merged-with-post-rockian-guitar atmospheres, from a production point of view. But nothing sticks, There Is Love In You still falls foul of the same problem his previous albums have: too pleasant, nothing stands out.EXCEPT! Now, after 45 minutes of plodding deep-house glitchery, we come across the inexplicably placed hidden track which is ... a psyche-folk-rock piece? And Kieran sings? To oboes? Strains of piano? Real bass? Hell, there's even a pop hook in "I Miss You", when massed Hebdens cry all at once. The again folksy guitar picking is vibrant and propels the song well. And I'm left stunned. Stunned that Kieran doesn't write an album of THIS stuff instead, when it's clearly superior to the rest of the songs. As I said, inexplicable.Edit: Watch the deep-house and IDM fanatics hit that disagree button, everyone! If it isn't obvious, I'm not hating on this album, but it's patchy when it's not enjoyable.

So, Four Tet then. I understand Four Tet, but I have to say that I don't really 'get' Four Tet anymore. I understand exactly why he exists, exactly what he does and why it attracts people, and why this is important for music. It seems to me that he's directly in between people who veer towards electronic music, and those who prefer instrument based music. This is hardly surprising considering the sound pallet he's used since the entire conception of this project has remained universally unchanged, barring a few minor tweaks here and there stylistically. And I'll be one to fully admit that in the past I was very into what I was hearing. Being someone who adored electronic music and all its forms and shied away from guitars for many years, his work along with Hood's 'Cold House' album and a few others, helped bridge that gap, and this is important despite personal taste.Since then, I've accepted guitar based music and embraced it, looking for the most forward thinking, accessible, weird, crazy 'full-band' music I could get my hands on. It could be droning post-rock, screeching noise, simple indie pop both obscure and popular, it doesn't matter; I wanted to hear it. I've continued my love of electronic music, diving deeper into areas I all but ignored in the past, going back and moving forward. So I went back to Four Tet expecting the best because it contained both facets that I enjoyed, but was surprised when it did nothing for me. It just seemed to...exist complacently maybe. It ebbs and flows along nicely sure, sounding beautiful without trying too hard, interesting without going overboard, and while people seem to be content thinking of this as a unique bonus, I can't help but feel this is a negative with each album he subsequently releases. This one is no exception to me.On 'There Is Love In You' (uh, that title is serious?), it contains everything he has ever done in the history of his entire musical career, once again repeated with a slight stylistic change, this change being 'dance'. So you have your Four Tet staples: Floaty guitar and tones with very room oriented production--simulated or otherwise--and slight synthetic elements, only this time fed through a tech-house arrangement on a number of tracks. And the results are, like every Four Tet album; interesting, entirely pleasant with a bit of 'moodiness', forward thinking to a degree, and overall solid if-you-are-looking-for-that-sorta-thing (I'm not, I found that 10 years ago and don't need to hear it all the time). There are highlights and unfortunate blemishes, though fans who have zero criticism of even their most cherished of artists will say otherwise.I might not get any friends by saying this, but 'Angel Echoes' is one of the worst tracks I've heard by him, so apologies to those who find it brilliant but it couldn't be more off the mark if it tried. I think everyone caught a vocal-cut bug from Burial and started getting really sloppy about it (and before you scream murder upon me, I love Burial to death), which can either be amazing or just sluggish and weird. The beginning of 'Love Cry' sounds pretty excellent, very tense and it's build works great, but then a entirely mono synth comes in with sloppy vocal cuts and its difficult to keep the prior momentum going in my head. 'Sing' also starts out very nicely, but again elements come in that are hard to get excited about. And the rest, although nice in spots, does not stand out much to me, though I wouldn't call it bad.I want to make this clear: I'm not looking for things to hate just to talk about it. I gave this album, along with every other album he's done, the benefit of the doubt because I do truly think he's talented. So this is reaction, nothing more. I'm not going to go as far and say that I wouldn't recommend this album, because I do think spots of it are good. And if you are not bothered by the elements I'm bothered by, then this album could be everything you've hoped for. But Four Tet's insistence on straddling the line has and will continue to bore me, and I would wish he became more adventurous. He's a talented artist for sure, but he needs a change. A bigger change.

A fair personal analysis, but I don't think of any moment of this album to be inspired stylistically, or in terms of arrangement, by Tech House. It's widely considered to be in almost all reviews I have read, but to me this is at least a 4* album that continues the progression of the Four Tet project aptly, fusing electronic material and production with something more organic and wholesome. I think with track 5, "Sing", that people may not be excited by the elements and progression because they expect it to become a fully fledged Tech House number, but it was never heading in that direction as that would destroy the flow of this very "complete" album.