​Four Tet
(le) Poisson Rouge
Saturday, March 10

Better than: Sleeping through the Daylight Savings Time switch.

Over the course of 13 years and five albums, Kieran Hebden—a.k.a. Four Tet—has established himself as a leading figure in experimental and electronic music. With a balance of organic and programmed elements in his arsenal, as well as a slew of hip-hop and jazz influences, he bucks stereotypes and paints electronic music as a humanistic genre.

A production by Four Tet might contain re-pitched vocals, mallet percussion, harps, analog synthesizers, and syncopated slip-n-slide patterns programmed from vintage drum kit samples. An arrangement like this sounds like it could be overstuffed, but Hebden's production style instead tends toward the skeletal and simplistic.

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​Springy electric-socket hair, dark droopy eyes—Kieran Hebden looks like a man who has spent untold time tinkering in front of a glowing computer screen late into the night. The depth of his production work as Four Tet, however, belies the physical man-hours necessary for such precision. Every shuffle and stab unwinds easily, and even the most uncontrollably ecstatic vocal samples float unbothered over the clamor. A marked sense of restraint characterizes his productions, with any bombastic intent cloaked in some sort of undermining subtlety. "Pyramid," the outstanding original track Hebden included in the FabricLive mix he released last year, might have featured an exhilarating jumble of claves and the garbled stuttering of a spurned lover, but it also included two minutes of drum-less ambience, a calming blanket momentarily warming the dance floor.

Four Tet is a terrifyingly adept electronic producer, but it's not like he has ceased to make human contact, preferring to coo at floppy disks and converse in binary. On the contrary, he is an in-demand remixer who has lent his talents to artists as varied as the XX and Tinariwen and collaborated with Burial and Thom Yorke. Lately, he performed as part of psychedelic dance wizard Dan Snaith's Caribou Vibration Ensemble, unleashing analog synthesizer mayhem on unsuspecting crowds. This Saturday, Four Tet will perform at the long-running Mister Saturday Night party with residents Justin Carter and Eamon Harkin. Hebden was relaxed as he spoke about playing Herbie Hancock records at Low End Theory, the rhythmic lessons he took from Steve Reid, and why he avoids digital listening.

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Four Tet, SBTRKT, FaltyDL, Bronze, TURRBOTAX DJs
P.S. 1 (Warm Up 2011)
Saturday, July 9

Better than: Any other Warm Up show you'll see this summer. (Probably.)

I have to admit, right off the bat: Per my stubborn insistence on darting up and down Manhattan in pursuit of a mostly-drunk Ryan Trecartin (the Los Angeles-based video artist whose Any Ever series is on display at PS1 now), I missed the more sun-baked hours of Saturday's marathon at MoMA's Queens satellite. But I wasn't the only one; by the time I rolled up to P.S. 1, a touch before 5 p.m., the vast majority of what would soon be a packed-to-the-jambs crowd in the courtyard was still snaked patiently 'round the block. (If the Museum doesn't mention the line-cutting privileges that come with its membership cards, starting to advertise that would make a sound business move.)

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Warm-and-refreshingly-human-sounding electronic guru Kieran Hebden, who someone in SOTC's orbit I could mention thinks is super-cute, dropped by LPR last Thursday for some alternately delicate and pulverizing digital-love jams; the fine folks at WNYC kindly offer a stream of the whole thing, embedded below. (Above is some arty video of the gig, courtesy of Pitchfork. "Love Cry" is your killer.

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Try this one, it's called "Slow Jam," for very good reason.

Four Tet
Le Poisson Rouge
Wednesday, February 18

People used to call Kieran Hebden's preferred style "folktronica," and for that he deserves a sincere, groveling apology. Everyone does. It made slightly more sense back in 2003, when Rounds, his third release as Four Tet, revealed itself as a world-class driving-across-a-famous-bridge-and-enjoying-the-view record, delicately mingling the robotic and the pastoral, digital sunrises and digital sunsets. Hard, insistent electronic beats mingled with chopped-up pieces of what sounded suspiciously like acoustic guitars, music boxes, harps, mandolins. "As Serious as Your Life" paired a lithe funk bassline with... an autoharp? Could it be? And why not? He plays it tonight at LPR, roundabouts 1:15 a.m. or so, and the sold-out crowd goes (demurely) nuts.

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Kieran Hebden doesn't like repeating himself artistically. Of course, all artists will tell you this. And now that electronic musicians like Hebden can flit from dubstep to ambient, or from folk to funk just by downloading extra plug-ins, it's not exactly a bold stance to take on the issue of craftsmanship.

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