Heavier Boots

Rounds by Four Tet

Insound

I can't remember how Four Tet came to be in my music library, but the why's and how's are not nearly as important as the gratuitous luck that it is in my music library. I honestly can't talk music like other people do. There isn't much that I can actually say about Rounds that someone else couldn't say better. The most basic point: Kieran Hebden makes the warmest, happiest fucking music you'll ever hear made on a computer.

Today I happen to be wearing even heavier boots than yesterday, and Rounds makes them a little bit lighter. The opener, "Hands" is full of happy little percussive tinkles, while "My Angel Rocks Back and Forth" drifts along with its piano twinkles and iron-lung sighs. The opus of Rounds, "Unspoken" lasts a good 9 and a half minutes, and instead of sagging under its own weight, it manages to keep itself from feeling repetitive or boring. "As Serious As Your Life" is not as deadly as it sounds, with the guitar and drums playing a prominent role in the song.

There really isn't much that Four Tet has done that I haven't enjoyed. Of course there's always the fact that he just uses so many different genre styles, so that every album is like rediscovering an old friend and seeing how they've changed. But beyond that, Hebden simply has an uncanny way of feeling immediate rather than spacial; while M83 may feel cinematic, Sigur Ros may induce hallucinations of glaciers and snowy fields, and Air or Radiohead or all manners of other electronic bands may make spacially wonderful but isolating music, Hebden's electronic style always feels acoustic and warm.

Out of the majority of the music that I've forced myself to listen to, or the music that I've enjoyed for moments in time, Four Tet has always been more durable and the most enjoyable.