In an EDM culture saturated with artists who construct their tracks with grimy beats and filthy bass drops, it’s refreshing to have someone like Four Tet.
The English musician, who’s responsible for 2010’s exceptional album “There Is Love In You”, 2013’s “Beautiful Rewind”, and collaborations with Burial and Thom Yorke, shared his eighth studio album “Morning/Evening” on June 21.
The new forty-minute release has two tracks, “Morning Side” and “Evening Side,” each of which are roughly 20 minutes in length and can be heard on Four Tet’s BandCamp page. The album was produced on a laptop with Ableton Live software, mix VST synthesizers, and manipulated found audio recordings, according to the site.
Four Tet’s sparse use of synthesizers, beats, and samples makes for an album that’s seductively simple. With the passing minutes, he eviscerates other electronic musicians by playing with a simple, impressionist trance. To put it lightly, it’s more Steve Reich than Calvin Harris.
“Morning/Evening” is an interesting concept that pays off by many multiples.
The first track opens with a pulsating rhythm and a complement of Hindustani vocals as vast as morning sun rays. The “Evening” half uses some dreary summer evening synthesizers that would be at home on a Clint Mansell score as the bright vocals fade and recede behind a horizon. It lulls you into a thrumming, bass-heavy slumber.
In Four Tet’s newest release, he’s composed a soundtrack for the seemingly uneventful; it makes going to sleep feel like a momentous activity, and waking up to the morning sun something worth celebrating.
