Four Tet - Pockets Single Review

Four Tet,
Pockets
Single Review

Kieran Hebden has always liked his electronica project 'Four Tet' to remain a musical anomaly: he chooses to have all sorts of untold fun with computer-generated xylophones and other perverse percussion than play up to the acclaim that won him a 2003 Mercury Music Prize nomination. But for all his admirable diversity and experimentation in recent years, 'Pockets' contains much the same type of euphoria that has made legends out of Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx, not that Hebden would ever say so of course.

The upbeat synths that break open this track unfortunately lack a lot of creativity, but punctuated with some much needed whirring and whizzing programming weaved into the rhythm, 'Pockets' is gradually given more life than Daft Punk themselves could inject it with. Thankfully, this pretty much takes over the record; the synths are phased out in favour of a deeper, more engrossing beat in what eventually tears the tune to pieces. What's left at the end is a big, bold, eclectic mess of noise – and importantly, it's justified: you're left a million miles from home, with only strange and supernatural rhythms for company. It's suddenly all become rather exciting!

7/10

Jamie Curtis