[above: Four Tet's 2001 album Pause]
It takes a lot to get excited about an EP, but this is Kieran Hebdan we're talking about. Though he hasn't quite been idle, having been collaborating/remixing/producing lately with everyone from Alexis Taylor to Battles to longtime friend and jazz monster Steve Reid, we've been waiting for some new Four-Tet-qua-Four-Tet stuff for a while.
The four tracks that make up Ringer have been called “mini headphone epics” by the people who are paid to come up with quaint phrases like that, but this time we might be inclined to believe them.
Ringer:
01 Ringer
02 Ribbons
03 Swimmer
04 Wing Body Wing
“The Ringer mini album is a 32 minute, four-track excursion into the kind of wide-open spaces you might find if you set out to make techno with an afrobeat/krautrock sensibility.
Ringer locks together gloriously rich synthesizer arpeggios; 'Wing Body Wing' slips from crisp clusters of disco percussion to Steve Reich polyrhythms; and in between are another two euphoric ripples of sound, 'Ribbons' and 'Swimmer'.”
The album lands April 21 in the UK and May 6 in the US on Domino Records.
