Four Tet - Dialogue

The album that paved the way for the crudely named 'Folktronica' tag is re-released by Output to coincide with Four Tet's recent 'Rounds' album.

It started back in 1998, as part of the highly acclaimed Post Rock outfit Fridge, Kieran Hebden wanted to introduce Electronic elements and samples to their sound, with the rest of the band being undecided about the decision, Hebden set out to create his own piece of work as a solo artist. After the magnificent debut release that was 'Thirtysixtwentyfive', he unleashed his full length masterpiece to an unsuspecting audience under the alias of Four Tet. Taking in the inspirations that made Fridge's earlier work so addictive, Four Tet introduced a heap of other genres, namely Jazz, an influence which can still be heard throughout his career today.

Not so much an electronic release, you could argue it's a Post Rock classic, although this would be innacurate and lazy. What's so fascinating about 'Dialogue' is it's completely live sound, it may be produced on a home PC and be sample heavy, but it's presented like a full live band playing. This isn't to say Four Tet doesn't play anything, he is a multi-instrumentalist just with a Hip Hop ethos to his work. These instrumentals are beautifully melancholic in parts fusing hard beats with live orchestral sounds and guitars.

Many of these techniques were even later adopted by Fridge in their later albums. The production is smooth but in comparison to his recent sublime offerings, seems relatively old hat and outdated, this isn't to say the music itself is retro. On the contrary, 'Dialogue' is still highly refreshing and groundbreaking, remarkable that a man of a young age was creating such excellent work, no record collection is complete without a copy.