Beautiful Rewind
After more than a decade of serving up solid Four Tet material for other labels, Kieran Hebden has gone rogue in recent years, using his Text imprint as a platform to press sporadic singles and one-off collaborations with high-profile underground heroes like Thom Yorke and Burial. Last year\'s *Pink* dropped many of those 12-inches in one place alongside a few new tracks, but it wasn\'t a proper \"album\" in the way *Beautiful Rewind* aims to be. Produced in relative isolation while Hebden refused press requests and shared the occasional song over Twitter, it ends up nailing Hebden\'s goal of going back underground while still making his music widely available. There\'s a reason \"Kool FM\" references one of London\'s most beloved pirate stations; *Beautiful Rewind* hopes to reclaim the mad-for-it spirit that warehouse raves and radio waves ran on before the Man started busting both of \'em. And with highlights as immediate as the fluttering hooks of \"Parallel Jalebi,\" the scrambled rhyme schemes of \"Aerial,\" and the peak-hour pounding of \"Buchla,\" it works.
At just over 40 minutes, Four Tet's new Jungle-steeped Beautiful Rewind is an effortless listen, but when it wanders it feels like a bauble, one from an artist from whom we are accustomed to receiving richer gifts.
Kieran Hebden's first proper Four Tet album since 2010's There Is Love in You, Beautiful Rewind follows a string of short-form releases that included collaborations with Burial, Thom Yorke, and Rocketnumbernine, in addition to singles issued on the producer's Text label.
If London's alternative music scene were anthropomorphized, there is every chance that it would look like Kieran Hebden.
Kieran Hebden's seventh album as Four Tet harks back to early-90s rave culture and is an unexpected pleasure, writes <strong>Killian Fox</strong>
Beautiful Rewind is a reminder that Four Tet’s music is as much a listening experience as it is one that compels you to move.