Thread for all things Four Tet, one of my favourite artists. I’ll start by posting a couple of favourite tracks, a recent interview and a video that inspired me years ago.
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Saw him playing with Fridge donkeys years ago when they toured with The Delgados. They were banging.
His solo output gets less and less of interest to me the longer it goes on.
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Agree. The recent stuff is nice but a bit too polished and samey.
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I’ll tea them up…
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Yeah, Fridge played at the Kosmische Club at least once, though before I became a DJ as I recall; they were great live.
I quite liked the various early Four Tet records as I recall so should probably revisit them some time.
Love Four Tet. Bought the 1st and 2nd albums, then lost touch for a while. But since reluctantly getting Spotify, I’ve been catching up. Parallel and Three on regular rotation recently.
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The recent tape notes podcast is interesting. In it he says he only uses presets and encourages people to spend more time listening to a wide variety of music and getting ideas rather than learning all the technical aspects of production. In general it seems he is a creativity and ideas guy rather than a heavily technical guy - of course having decades of experience means his ear is well tuned at this point.
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Yeah I also thought about posting this bit of info from his recent Tape Notes interview. So thanks for opening this thread!
Short version is he’s an arrangement first guy. Though most of his time still goes into mixing and fine tuning, he first wants to get the core idea down before starting with that.
He also mentions that a go to method of his is to layer three sounds to enhance a melody/kick/whatever. And there’s always some sample/field recording (often hidden) that gives some personal meaning and human feel.
I really like his output. Love Rounds and There Is Love in You and Sixteen Oceans. Lots of good tracks spread on the rest of his discography. Special shout out to Morning/Evening, great concept LP!
His work definitely was a huge influence on me. His quirky, dreamy, plucky and playful melodies (harps!) opened me up to more electronic music, and it’s something I love to do in my own music as well. I appreciated his beats and grooves a bit later. Generally prefer him moving towards more electronic production and sound, though I agree his stuff became a bit more formulaic.
There’s also a nice interview with him on the „Hanging Out with Audiophiles“ podcast where he talks more about how he archives all of his loops my days/months. Which means he always has a library of decades to sort through when making a new track. He also talks about how his live show is still based around the same shitty laptop from years and years ago, running Kool FM and stuff. Definitely not a GAS guy.
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I think the podcast you are referring to is “Hanging Out with Audiophiles” by Jamie Lidell, right?
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Exactly, got the title wrong.
It’s a strange podcast title anyway, it has nothing to do with audiophiles per sé — in fact, I’d say most musicians he has on the pod are quite the opposite of audiophiles, in that they are not obsessing over “perfect” sound but are much more about getting characterful sound. I think most audiophiles would cringe at Four Tet only using his laptop to mix and master his music.
I later learned the podcast title is a lyric from one of Lidell’s songs.
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Four Tet’s remix of MF Doom is what got me into his music. Listening to him again and watching the interviews. It’s incredible how much stuff he’s solely down in box, doesn’t have an elaborate set-up or even loads of gear. Yet makes some banging tunes.
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I think you mean ‘cool edit’ as the software he still uses.
That podcast episode is also great. A laptop, some records and omnisphere is all you need 
(and a bit of talent of course 
)
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Parallel 1 is pretty unique amongst the new stuff and i think it’s a masterpiece
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Another slip, Kool FM is a track from one of my least favorite Four Tet albums I think 
. But to be fair, he’s probably right when he says nobody is using that nowadays.
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i was just randomly watched old brian eno interview on redbull,
suddenly four tet pops up from the audience
to ask eno a question haha, good one too.
1:09:30 [ second bump on the timeline at the last part ]
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I like his mindset.
“My plan is never to plan. I’m just going to tour this record and see how the music evolves from there. It might be next year when I sit down to make new music and I might never wanna hear another bass drum in my life. I’m getting old and my taste is getting worse - Sting put out that lute album where he sings like Robin Hood. It’s gotta be coming up soon where I make an incredibly bad taste decision, so maybe that’s my next project.”
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I posted the Musicradar article version of this interview in another thread. I don’t think it’s hard to mix and master with only laptop speakers IF everything is constant. For example, out of curiosity I just skimmed through a few of his albums. In each album, if your sound is consistent (same instruments/presets and genre), your chain won’t change much. So he likely, like many others, can easily mix and master with a laptop in my opinion. I doubt he’s doing this between projects though.
Got into the early Four Tet stuff after my art teacher played Rounds during portraiture class. Worked really well for that environment. Then when I was obsessing over music in the early to mid 2010s he’d moved on from his background vibes music to his house music phase, which didn’t do anything for me at all.
I respect his work and admire his passion, though his stuff is a bit bland for my palate.
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