FOUR TET – THERE IS LOVE IN YOU Vinyl 2xLP For Sale

It would be equally legitimate to suggest that this record comes closer to the brazen musicality of 2003 s Rounds than anything he s done since, and right from the start, you know this is going to be special: Angel Echoes toys with looped female vocals singing the album s title while tuned percussion and plucked strings swirl about in an increasingly tangled up mix. It s quintessentially Four Tet, alchemically blending organic instrumentation with edited samples and laptop treatments in a gloriously tatty mesh. This is just the warm-up though: the massive, bass heavy drumming of Love Cry marks a step into more dancefloor-geared terrain, although the sort of grit and swing embedded deep in the track suggests Hebden s still plundering old, obscure jazz LPs for inspiration.

 Switching into kosmische mode, the early- 80s synth designs and repetitive minimalism of Circling exhibits shades of Cluster, Steve Reich and Italo disco, but Sing takes the album up a gear once again; representing a real high point at the album s centre, it s a sublimely melodious house-styled concoction boasting intricate, squelchy beat programming and sliced up, wordless vocals. As a sequence, the album is masterfully tight and lean, and perhaps most significantly, it shows signs of real creative evolution: subtly, Hebden seems to be integrating the key sonic threads of the current UK urban scene into his dusty, sample-heavy sound – something that s underlined by a track like the booming Plastic People , with its melancholic atmospherics and authoritative beat production. A serious return to form, and a reminder of just how inspired Kieran Hebden can sound when he s at his best.