Hi, everyone. Bothany Botano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Four Tet album, Three.

Yep, new album from famed DJ and producer, Kieran Hebden, A. K. A. Four Tet. A guy who made a name for himself, crafting some of the best folk-tronic, glitch hop, and new jazz works of the 2000s, culminating eventually into the beautiful and entrancing There is Love in You in 2010, which was not just one of my favorite records of that a year, but of the 2010s. Generally, I highly recommend it.

Since attaining more of a veteran status in electronic music's underground, Hebden's output has grown spotter and also a lot more ambient. Recently, he was turning heads, collaborating and performing with the likes of Fred Again and Skrillex, which is a pretty significant thing. It's not often that the biggest and most current and most mainstream artists in electronic music pay homage to some of the more underrated older artists in the scene in the genre, especially while they're still around. But if you thought this would put Hebden in a place where he was going to reconsider his artistic trajectory, you thought wrong. And depending on your perspective, that could be a good or a bad thing.

The last studio albums we heard from Hebden dropped back in 2020. We got a double feature with the ambient leaning Sixteen Oceans. And then months later, that same year, he put out under also the Four Tet named the much more abstract Parallel record, a 10-track experience that kicks off with a 30-minute synth odyssey. There was some pretty fire ambient techno and micro house stuff on the back end of that Paralleldowntempo record, which is no surprise. That's very much in Hebden's wheelhouse.

Like much of his work these days, this new LP, Three, is intriguing, but it's difficult to discern any coherent direction or vision going on with these tracks on the whole. As with this LP, we have a pretty general combination of downtempo, of ambient music, of IDM. The opening track is certainly a highlight with its head nodding, chunky beat loops that have a hip hop flair. And Hebden tops with some glistening, otherworldly synth leads. Really a track I wish was a smidge longer. Don't mind getting lost in it at all, especially during some of the thick, noisy, bassy synth swells on the back end of it.

Less engaging, though, is the following: "Through Everything", which has some very simple keyboard passages that are laid out in effects that create these stuttering, delayed, fragmented bits. There are some pretty moments, but the entire idea ultimately is pretty fleeting, especially as it transitions so quickly into this droney ambient outro.

We also have more down tempo on the track "Storm Crystals". The disjointed plucky melodies and beats create a very relaxed vibe, but ultimately this track just meanders for several minutes before eventually coasting out on yet another ambient drone. By contrast, the track "Daydream Repeat" has a bit more pep in its step. I did like it when I first heard it as a teaser, but honestly, it's far from Hebden's most evocative combination of beats and synths. The track opens up with a roar of distortion, only for it to eventually transition into what sounds like menu screen music for some Y2K-era video game, maybe a platformer with a lot of water levels. The track Skater is the biggest head scratcher on the record. I have no idea why this is here on a fortet record. It's got some groovy rock drums, which are top with these watery, mushed up guitar arpeggios that, I don't know, it's giving bad '90s alt rock demo.

All that it's really missing is some guy doing a bad Perry Farrell impression. That one's a pretty big miss. There's also "31 Bloom" on which the beat goes, but the synth passages on top are so obscured and vague. They don't bring much to the table. I imagine you could paint this rhythm with any number of equally opaque synth bits, and you would get roughly the same vibe. The beat on "So Blue" is colored a bit more creatively. I would say this one scratches a lot of the same itches as the intro, but this time around it's more blissful, it's a bit more moody.

Then the closing track feels like more ambient and slightly subversive takes on a Y2K muzak with some miraculous string sections thrown in unexpectedly. The pacing of it isn't exactly a thrill, but I can't deny that the layers are pretty and also very gratifying when it eventually reaches a climax.

Those are the tracks on this record that overall, I just think it's alright, it's okay. Nothing too exciting or ground-breaking in the Kieran Hebden camp. It's overall passable, it's likable, but I'm not really sure if there's anything on it that I see myself going back to anytime soon, especially given that I could listen to Rounds, or There's Love In You, or Pink.

Look, by comparison, even Parallel was a bit more daring and experimental. Feeling a light 6 on this one.

Anthony Fantano, Four Tet, Forever.