Pause

Two years after the release of the debut Four Tet album Dialogue, Kieran Hebden is back with Pause, an album so fresh that it could make sour milk drinkable again.

Pause consists of some soothing instrumentals, which has been put down to Kieran taking a liking to eccentric British folk music. But this is not folk music… far from it. Although not easy to define, this album sounds something like the weird instrumental part of Hendrix’s ‘1983 (A Merman I Shall Turn To Be)’, all rippling, all beguiling and quite probably all conquering.

From the comforting vinyl crackle on ‘Glue Of The World’ to the harp strummed occasionally on ‘Untangle’, Four Tet have put together diverse sounds with surgical precision. The result, accompanied with an unfaltering backbeat, flushes all thought out of your mind when listened to, and not a bad thing, in truth.

From track to track, the album meanders aimlessly and takes you with it, going nowhere in particular, but everywhere at once. If I seem a little confused it is because I am listening to Pause right now, in such a chilled state that I can hardly type.

You could expect to hear the songs on Pause played on opening a high-tech modern day jewellery box whilst floating in space. If flawed, it is only because it does not get loud enough to snap you out of it.