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VARIOUS (FOUR TET)

'LATE NIGHT TALES'

AZULI
CD

(OCTOBER 2004)

Four Tet (aka Kieran Hebden), widely regarded as being responsible for some of today’s most cutting edge electronic music, releases his first ever compilation as part of the ‘Late Night Tales’ series.

Taking in the far-flung reaches of Kieran’s legendarily expansive musical map and unveiling many of the influences behind his ‘Pause’ and ‘Rounds’ albums, this collection pitches warm psychedelia against cool jazz against free floating folk against hardcore hip hop against straight up experimental lunacy, and emerges with a cohesive game-plan, after a fashion.

Uniting these seemingly disparate choices is Kieran’s fascination with the microscopic detail of the music, something which informs the be-jewelled surfaces of his own records. Here the syncopated tintinnabulations of early Tortoise’s ‘Why We Fight’ are echoed in the otherwise dissimilar ‘Tinkle’ by J Saunders, which itself mirrors the music boxes of the opening ‘Haunted Feelings’ by Rahsaan Roland Kirk (a song on which all instruments are performed simultaneously by Kirk himself).

Four Tet’s ‘Late Night Tales’ is the twelfth in the ‘Late Night Tales’ series, following on from Nightmares On Wax, Howie B, Rae & Christian, Fila Brazillia, Turin Breaks, Groove Armada, Zero 7, Kid Loco, Tommy Guerrero, and Jamiroquai. In its four short years it has clocked up over half a million CD sales and still continues to grow.