Roots of Four (Tet)

Four Tet: The Butterfly Effect
From Dialogue (Output, 1999)

Four Tet (Kieran Hebden) released a new album, Everything Ecstatic, today. If you read any review of it, I guarantee that the following three words will appear: “folktronica” (the genre tag that Hebden’s music has been burdened with), Pause and Rounds (his second and third albums, respectively). However, critics almost never mention Four Tet’s debut, Dialogue, which complicates the common thesis that Four Tet = countryside + computers. The songs on Dialogue have more in common with free jazz than folk. The Butterfly Effect, for example, throws hyperactive percussion and squawking sax lines into the mix, along with Hebden’s signature drum programming and twinkling melodies.