Review: Four Tet – There Is Love In You
Four Tet - There is Love in You (2010) [Domino] // Grade: A-
The newest masters of subtlety: Gui Boratto. The Field. Lusine. And now, if he wasn’t there already, veteran producer Kieran Hebden and the organic electro of Four Tet—because even though you’d struggle to box in There Is Love In You with modern minimal, it’s not difficult to hear the references in its winding, hypnotic tracks. This is Four Tet’s most fluid album to date, if not the best, and that has everything to do with a fresh focus on stripping things bare.
‘Course, that concept resonates differently in the Four Tet universe. After more than a decade of critically lauded releases and remixes, Hebden would be hard pressed to trade his signature warmth for the comparative chill of Gui Boratto’s filter sweeps—this guy did spawn the (seriously annoying) term folktronica, after all. It’s all about nuance here; There Is Love In You is more concerned with being pretty than catchy, more interested in how a pattern shifts and stutters over time than how many kids it’ll bring to the floor. Hebden hinted at this smooth, circular nuance on last year’s Ringer EP, and here it bears fruit; from the unintelligible vocal samples of “Angel Echoes” to the looping guitar on “Circling”, the album develops slowly, almost imperceptibly, until it ends entirely different from where it kicked off. Only a few songs (most notably “Sing” and epic single “Love Cry”) deign to flirt with a dance-y vibe—and even then, they make way more sense surrounded by other tracks than they ever will on their own.
So could that be considered the album’s only drawback? Maybe. And also maybe not; it depends totally on how much you like this stuff to begin with. I mean, look at it this way: Four Tet’s never been all that single heavy. Sure, Hebden’s released them, and some have been insanely great (especially 2005′s “Smile Around The Face”). But Four Tet has always relied to some degree on context, and even the best singles shine most brightly in album format. To truly get the dynamics, the build, the simmering and stuttering 45+ minute climax that encapsulates There Is Love, you’ve got to hear it in one go. End of story. Break it up into bite-sized fragments, and it might go a little bland; a little ho-hum, next please. And let me tell you, There Is Love spun all at once? It’s anything—anything—but that.
