Kieran Hebden is one of those impressive young geniuses whose creative juices flow like Mount Vesuvius. At 17, he co-founded the outstanding post-rock outfit Fridge, and by the following year, had already released an acclaimed solo record as Four Tet. Since then, he's managed to keep both projects going strong. Both acts forge a middle ground between "pure" electronic music and "post-rock," with Fridge tending more toward post-rock and Four Tet toward electronic. Four Tet's combination of acoustic and electronic elements sounds fresh and unique, particularly at a time when so much electronic music is conceived and produced without ever leaving the digital realm. With its extensive use of field recordings and acoustic samples, Four Tet's music sounds truly organic and alive.

Hebden's inspiration for 2001's Pause was a documentary about folk musician Bert Jansch. He set out to make a folk record full of Krautrock beats, and by and large succeeded. You'll also hear some fantastic folk-infused breakbeat and downtempo. The featured track, "No More Mosquitoes," is actually anomalous in the context of the album, making much more prominent use of vocals (a sample of a kid singing about the absence of mosquitoes) and digital effects.

Rounds was released in May 2003. It was Hebden's most ambitious album to date[source?], incorporating diverse samples such as the mandolin on "Spirit Fingers", and even a rubber duck on the closing track "Slow Jam". Three singles were released from the album: "She Moves She", "As Serious as Your Life", and "My Angel Rocks Back and Forth". This last single was released as an EP featuring remixes by electronica duo Icarus and Isambard Khroustaliov along with additional Four Tet tracks "I've Got Viking in Me" and "All the Chimes". An accompanying DVD featured all of Four Tet's videos to date. In addition, the closing track "Slow Jam" was featured in a U.S. Nike commercial in 2001 and 2002; Hebden edited the track on the back of the bus with his laptop while on a tour with Fridge.
At the beginning of 2003, Four Tet opened for Radiohead on their European tour. A remix of the song Scatterbrain from Radiohead's latest album Hail to the Thief was included on their 2004 EP COM LAG
A live album named Live in Copenhagen 30th March 2004 was released in April 2004 as a limited edition, available only through the Domino Records website.
In March and April of 2005, Four Tet performed two shows of improvisational music, in collaboration with jazz drummer Steve Reid, in Paris and London. He also appears on Steve Reid Ensemble 2005 album Spirit Walk. This collaboration was extended into a series of international tours, and the release of two albums, The Exchange Session Vol. 1 and The Exchange Session Vol. 2 over the course of 2005 and 2006.
His fourth studio album Everything Ecstatic was released on Domino on 23 May 2005. The video for the lead single, "Smile Around the Face", features actor Mark Heap. The album brought with it another shift in style, leaving behind the breezy "folktronica" of Pause and Rounds for a darker, more complex sound. On 7 November 2005, Domino has released a DVD version of Everything Ecstatic featuring video clips for each track of the album plus a CD with new material.
Hebden has also remixed, under the Four Tet name, tracks by a wide range of artists including Madvillain, Bloc Party, Super Furry Animals, Beth Orton, Badly Drawn Boy, The Notwist, Boom Bip, Kings of Convenience and Radiohead.
On 25 September 2006, Domino Records released a two-disc compilation of Four Tet remixes, titled Remixes. The first disc contains twelve Four Tet remixes selected by Hebden, while the second disc will comprise every official remix to date (both by Hebden himself and by other artists) of Four Tet tracks. Many of the tracks to be included in this compilation have previously been available on vinyl only.

My angel rocks back and forth... (This is such a soothing, lovely song... a lullaby for adults who haven't lost their wonder.)


As serious as your life gets (If the sound of music was an acid trip or a song off the Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band lp)

Don Van Vliet (born Don Glen Vliet on January 15, 1941 in Glendale, California) is a musician and visual artist, best known by the pseudonym Captain Beefheart. His musical work was mainly conducted with a rotating assembly of musicians called the Magic Band, which was active from the mid-1960s through to the early 1980s. Van Vliet was chiefly a singer and harmonica player occasionally playing noisy, untrained free jazz-influenced saxophone and keyboards. His compositions are characterized by their odd mixtures of shifting time signatures and by their surreal lyrics, while Van Vliet himself is noted for his dictatorial approach to his musicians and for his enigmatic relationship with the public.
Van Vliet joined the newly forming Magic Band in 1965, quickly taking over as bandleader. Their early output was rooted in blues and rock music, but Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band gradually adopted a more experimental approach. 1969 saw the release of their best known album, Trout Mask Replica, which was produced by Van Vliet's childhood friend Frank Zappa and is today regarded as a groundbreaking and influential masterpiece. Van Vliet released several further albums throughout the 1970s, his group was beset by shifting line-ups and a lack of commercial success. Towards the end of that decade he settled with a group of younger musicians, and his three final albums, released between 1978 and 1982, all received critical acclaim. Van Vliet's legacy is one of poor record sales, despite a devoted following, but his influence on later punk and New Wave music and other genres and musicians has been described as "incalculable".
Since the end of his musical career around 1982, Van Vliet has made few public appearances, preferring a quiet life in his Northern Humboldt County California home where he has concentrated on a career in painting. His interest in art dates back to a childhood talent for sculpting, and his work—employing what has been surmised as a "neo-primitive abstract-expressionist aesthetic"—has received international recognition. Several of Van Vliet's former band members recently reformed as a group, and toured as The Magic Band from 2003 to 2006.

Capt. Beefheart and Frank Zappa ... Willie the Pimp (goodness but Tom Waits must love this song!)

Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Capt. Beefheart