(Domino Records/Speak n Spell)

As both a member of now-disbanded electronic / post-rock trio Fridge and through his own solo productions as Four Tet, UK-based producer / musician Kieran Hebden has carved out a distinct presence in the electronic / IDM world, with the breakthrough success of his last album, 2003’s ‘Rounds’ bringing his deft fusion of synthetic and acoustic instrumental elements (conveniently tagged ‘folktronica’ by certain sections of the music press) to a considerably wider audience. After spending much of last year on the road touring behind ‘Rounds’ (including a visit to Australia alongside Manitoba / Caribou), Hebden found his music going through a process of change, with the live Four Tet experience becoming ‘harder, more upfront and aggressive than on record.’ Fuelled by the impetus of this new sonic direction as well as a self-confessed fascination with ‘the hype about dance music being dead’, Hebden set about attempting to capture this harder sound on record, whilst also apparently rediscovering his fascination with the energy and ideas of old-school techno as well as bleeding-edge hiphop from the likes of Madlib and MF Doom. In particular, his accumulated ‘folktronica’ label was beginning to not sound relevant to his music anymore. With this in mind, Hebden apparently ‘began with a core of rebellion’, emerging from his studio two months later with this fourth artist album, the effusively-titled ‘Everything Ecstatic.’

Opening track ‘A Joy’ certainly provides a taste of this harder sonic direction, clattering jazz drums giving way to an evil-sounding distorted bassline that whirs its way through a spinning backdrop of electro handclaps and sparkling cymbals, some furious cuts and manic edits slowly unfurling their way around some strangely graceful melodic tones through all the furious chaos, shortly before the entire track descends into a screeching wall-of-sound of feedback. First 12” to be lifted from this album ‘Smile Around The Face’ offers a far more beatific and gentle counterpoint, with metronomic drum machine rhythms bolstered by clattering sampled drum breaks, while a sped-up chipmunk-esque female soul sample loops its way alongside an almost carnival-sounding melodic refrain, and vast rhythmic breaks carve their way through reverberating electronics, evoking a sense of RJD2’s sampled blues collages undergoing a processor meltdown, while the immense ‘Sun Drums and Soil’ slowly but inexorably builds up a roaring Sun Ra-esque clatter of rolling drum breaks and jazz horns around ebbing and whirring electronics and a soaring female soul vocal.

‘Clouding’ provides a brief ambient segue, with ringing gamelan-style metallic percussion being twisted through all manner of resonance filtering and digital manipulation, before ‘And Then Patterns’ locks down into one of this album’s most overtly hiphop-flavoured moments, with whirring ambient pads and a gently-plucked acoustic guitar floating over an undulating backdrop of vast beats and ebbing bass that sits somewhere between Prefuse73 and Funkstorung’s glacial elegance. ‘High Fives’ continues this edged hiphop trajectory, with muffled thumping drums and clattering cymbals cutting a vaguely militaristic path beneath floating vibraphone tones, furiously-manipulated turntable spinbacks and glittering melodic notes that almost sound like they were picked out tentatively by a child with a xylophone, while ‘Turtle Turtle Up’ places a vast clattering drum break beneath a buzzing analogue synth riff that almost sounds like it could have come from a retro arcade game, shakers and jazz cymbals dropping in during the final section to inject a sense of jazz-meets-krautrock swing as all manner of sampled environmental noise swirls around in the background. ‘Sleep, Eat Food, Have Visions’ emerges from some vaguely Luke Vibert-esque acid 303 burbles and slow breakbeats, wistful Boards Of Canada-esque trailing analogue synths and squelchy tones relentlessly building their way up until things slam forward into gliding robotic techno, relentless assembly-line rhythms being pushed through all manner of digital processing while whirring bleeps that evoke the sense of a malfunctioning dial-up connection slowly tear the entire track apart in a vast dub-delay crash. Finally, ‘You Were There With Me’ takes this album to an ebbing, ambient close, with ringing gamelan tones providing a reverb-heavy backdrop to slow thumping beats as things slowly fade away over what sounds like twinkling sleigh bells.

‘Everything Ecstatic’ is a stunning fourth artist album from Four Tet that shows Hebden adeptly shifting his sound just as the slightly straitjacketing ‘folktronica’ tag starts to tighten its hold, the greater focus on rhythmically-intense and techno / hiphop infused tracks here making this easily the most aggressive offering he’s unleashed under the Four Tet moniker so far. While the rhythms may frequently be more furious than the gentle pastoral fusions of electronic and acoustic elements showcased on ‘Rounds’, as always, it’s way in which Hebden is able to contrast more aggressive rhythmic edges with wistful, gentle melodic elements that marks out his trademark approach, and sets his work apart from the myriad other producers attempting this type of fusion. There’s a huge sonic pallette of influences at work within these eleven tracks as well, ranging from South East Asian percussion sounds, through to soul, blues and even the ghostly yet unmistakeable trace of early Detroit techno, and digesting everything that’s going on here is definitely going to take multiple listens. One of the best albums I’ve heard so far this year, and no mistake.

Check out http://www.fourtet.com and http://www.speaknspellmusic.com.