Four Tet on Tour

Londoner Kieran Hebden has made music under many names — from Percussions to a moniker composed of binary code — but it’s as Four Tet that he became known for reprogramming our expectations of how pretty, organic and expansive electronic music can feel. Since the early ’00s, he’s been one of the most creatively unpredictable yet quality-reliable practitioners in the field, starting out by minting a genre (the downtempo folktronica), going on to collaborate with everyone from rock god Thom Yorke to jazz great Steve Reid to dubstep genius Burial to Syrian singer Omar Souleyman, and, in later years, bringing an auteur’s ear to various dance strains. Like his oeuvre, Four Tet’s live show has something for all: dreamy melodies, thrilling experimentalism, thick atmosphere and steady beats. Plus, typically, an amazing light show.

It’s possible that Hebden’s own heritage helped nurture his interest in harmonious eclecticism. His father was British and his mother was Indian, born in South Africa. Both were educators who no doubt encouraged an intellectual curiosity in their son — he’d go on to get a degree in mathematics/computer science but not before starting a post-rock band in high school, Fridge, and signing his first record deal at 15. Those interests would soon merge as Hebden began to make lo-fi, electronic music incorporating influences from hip-hop, jazz and Krautrock. After a 1997 single (“Double Density”), he changed his name from 4T to Four Tet, added New Age and world music to his source list and dropped a 36:25-long song called “Thirtysixtwentyfive,” naturally. In 1998, a bold, beatific remix of electronica master Aphex Twin put him on the map.

But it was 2003’s Rounds, Four Tet’s third album, that became a sensation for its seamless blend of computer glitch and acoustic instrumentation. The LP landed on countless year-end lists and scored Four Tet the opening slot on a Radiohead tour. The next few years were rife with new ideas — an improvisatory duo with jazz drummer Steve Reid, a noisily upbeat new album (2005’s Everything Ecstatic), remixes galore, an unmarked single ultimately attributed to him and Burial — but a new era arrived with 2010’s There Is Love in You, which Hebden prepared for via a DJ residency at popular U.K. club Plastic People. His deep dive into warm, energized house- and garage-inspired dance echoes through the Four Tet catalog to this day, on diverse works like 2017’s New Energy, as he explores the breadth of his sonic universe.