shop | mailing lists
musicOMH
music: album reviews
Four Tet - Remxes (Domino)
UK release date: 25 September 2006
4 stars
Four Tet - Remxes

buy this title


track listing


Disc One
1. Lars Horntveth: Tics
2. Radiohead: Skttrbrain
3. Madvillain: Money Folder
4. His Name Is Alive: One Year
5. Sia: Breathe Me
6. Aphex Twin: Untitled (Selected Ambient Works 2)
7. Madvillain: Great Day
8. Bonobo: Pick Up
9. Rothko: Roads Become Rivers
10. Beth Orton: Carmella
11. Bloc Party: So Here We Are
12. Pole: Heim

Disc Two
1. A Joy (Percee P version)
2. As Serious As Your Life (Jay Dee Remix)
3. Hilarious Movie Of The 90's (Manitoba Remix)
4. Hilarious Movie Of The 90's (Koushik's Funny Flic)
5. A Joy (Remix)
6. My Angel Rocks Back And Forth (Icarus Remix)
7. A Joy (Battles Remix)
8. As Serious As Your Life (Remix)
9. A Joy (Koushik's Quick Mix)
10. Sun Drums And Soil (Sa Ra Creative Partners Remix)
11. First Thing/Chia (Isambard Khroustaliov Remix)
12. No More Mosquitoes (Boom Bip Remix)
The remix has always had two sides to its story. On the one are those who've used it as a cash cow, a form of art where established dance producers can exploit their reputation in the name of a quick buck.

Thankfully such practices that were rife in the mid 1990s are largely confined to the second hand bargain bins, and those still standing see the form as an artistic challenge, a chance to impose their own musical personalities on the music of others, without the need to resort to formula.

Keiran Hebden belongs firmly in the latter camp. A prolific remixer, he has an individual approach that transforms the music he works on into tracks that are recognizably his. In particular he has an individual flair with percussion, not just inventive or oddball rhythms, but florid drum fills that surround the melodic material, rarely getting in its way.

Of course Hebden explores this improvisatory style further in his sessions with Steve Reid, but he largely uses it with economy in his remixes. Now and then he overdoes it, but the most successful work secures a tension between the relative stillness of the pitched sounds he retains against the more frenetic activity of the drums. Thom Yorke finds himself thus cast, with the remix of Radiohead's Skttrbrain setting his long, drawn out vocal against a slow moving chorale, with splintered breakbeats all around.

Within this loose template there is still plenty of room for Hebden to operate. The remix of His Name Is Alive's One Year is notably empty, a barely perceptible melody atop dislocated drum beats. Contrast that with the bluster of Madvillain's rap in Great Day, a full accompaniment giving the track huge energy. Meanwhile Bonobo's Pick Up moves forward in stately fashion with a DJ Shadow-type rhythm, while the early remix of Rothko's Roads Become Rivers offers a more sombre mood.

Domino's generous package surveys not only the pick of Four Tet's remixes over the past seven years, but craftily adds a second disc of Hebden remixed by others, in fact every remix he has commissioned. This includes an excellent reworking of the flexible As Serious As Your Life from Jay Dee, but even given the variety on show the four remixes of A Joy are a little too much to take in one sitting.

That's a minor criticism, however, as this is an absorbing lesson in how to respectfully treat other people's work while at the same time offering your own perspective. In Hebden's case this means branching out sufficiently far and wide to avoid potentially routine cover versions with ease. He's an excellent technician, continually inventive and surprising, and Remixes offers an excellent companion to his studio albums and sessions.

  share: 
Facebook | Digg | del.icio.us | more
Mercury Prize 2009 nominees
FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE SPEECH DEBELLE KASABIAN FRIENDLY FIRES
LA ROUX BAT FOR LASHES THE HORRORS GLASVEGAS
SWEET BILLY PILGRIM THE INVISIBLE LISA HANNIGAN LED BIB




out this week:
Julian Casablancas - Phrazes For The Young The Hidden Cameras - Origin: Orphan Weezer - Raditude
Luke Haines - 21st Century Man Espers - III Local Natives - Gorilla Manor
coming soon:
Martha Wainwright - Sans Fusils, Ni Souliers, a Paris Robbie Williams - Reality Killed The Video Star Mariah Carey - Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel
Will Young - The Hits Joe Goddard - Harvest Festival The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Higher Than The Stars EP
recent releases:
Cheryl Cole - Three Words McAlmont & Nyman - The Glare Miike Snow - Miike Snow
Devendra Banhart - What Will Be Will Be Kings Of Convenience - Declaration Of Dependence Wolfmother - Cosmic Egg
Portico Quartet - Isla Annie - Don't Stop Whitney Houston - I Look To You
The Antlers - Hospice BEAK> - BEAK> Atlas Sound - Logos
Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport The Flaming Lips - Embryonic Shakira - She Wolf
more album reviews
TOP ARTICLES NOW
GIG: Shirley Bassey dazzles Camden

GIG: HEALTH slay 30 minutes

MORE GIG REVIEWS: Maps, Smokey Robinson, Editors, iLiKETRAiNS, Dizzee Rascal, Doves, The Big Pink, Soap&Skin, Girls, Robbie Williams...

ALBUM: Cheryl Cole: 3 Words

FESTIVAL: In The City 2009

INTERVIEW: Miike Snow on deeply darkly danceable music and why cold is good

RELATED ARTICLES
ALBUM:
Four Tet - Ringer

ALBUM:
Four Tet - Remixes

ALBUM:
Various - Four Tet: DJ Kicks

ALBUM:
Four Tet - Everything Ecstatic

ALBUM:
Four Tet - Rounds

TRACK:
Four Tet - DJ Kicks: Pocket

TRACK:
Four Tet - A Joy

TRACK:
Four Tet - My Angel Rocks Back And Forth

TRACK:
Four Tet - As Serious As Your Life

TRACK:
Four Tet - She Moves She

EXTERNAL LINKS
Four Tet



  more album reviews...



musicOMH
about us
contact
copyright
home
elsewhere
Twitter
Facebook
Last.fm
Soundcloud
MySpace
© 1999-2009 OMH