Demob Happy

Four Tet - Ringer EP

7.5/10

I was once quite seasonally adjusted when it came to music. Spring and summer inspired me to listen to more notionally natural textures - let’s say alt-country, Americana or folk - while the onset of winter used to find me needing something more machine-driven. In recent years I’ve been rather unfaithful to electronica, having flirted provocatively with other music forms. I may have even said somewhere on this site that electronica is dead. Well, fool me. Recent albums by Fever Ray and worriedaboutsatan have got me all excited about the possibilities of electronic music again, and completely out of season too. In order to catch up a bit, I’ve just ordered Boards of Canada’s ‘Campfire Headphase’ and now Four Tet’s 2008 EP ‘Ringer’, admittedly both happy compromises on my seasonal requirements given the preponderance of ‘organic’ textures in both.

‘Ringer’ was hyped as a trend-bucking statement of intent by Kieren Hebden, given that the eponymous eight-minute track has Orbital written all over it, making it less easily to categorise as folktronica, a term he is known to hate. But for all the propulsiveness and glimmering synths, there is a hint of Glastonbury ‘93 about ‘Ringer’ that gives it a whiff of the bucolic. If ‘Ringer’ is a homage to the Hartnoll brothers then the other three tracks that comprise the EP explore looser, jazzier territory: there is the suggestion of the semi-improvised grooves that Hebden has been utilising to increasingly impressive effect on his Steve Reid collaborations. If you like this, you certainly should check out 2008 collaboration ‘NYC’. I particularly enjoy listening to these unhurried mood pieces as an antidotal soundtrack to a trip to Carrefour, an Analgoue Bubblebath for the brain.