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My Mind Rocks Back and Forth! – An Interview with Four Tet "
My Mind Rocks Back and Forth!
" My Mind Rocks Back and Forth! – An Interview with Four Tet "
My Mind Rocks Back and Forth!
Jonathan Dekel spends a weird night contemplating Four Tet.
Kieran Hebden
Four tet, Four tet, Four tet. I’ve been looking at my word document for the last half an hour and all that I find is Four tet. Streaming. In front of me lies a whole whack of info. I could inform you that Four tet is really one man, Kieran Hebden. Also in post-rock band Fridge, Kieran has jumped into international spotlight with huge supporting slots for the likes of Radiohead and the Super Furry Animals. I could mention that Rounds is Kieran Hebden’s 8th album, despite his only being 25. I could mention that his last two albums Dialogue and Pause were both spectacular pieces of free jazz and psych-folk respectively. I could squeeze in some cleaver adjectives like how luminous and serine his album truly is. I could do all that, but I’m not going to, I’m going to erase what I’ve just written and keep staring inanely at ‘Four tet’ while the album is calmly providing the soundtrack to my psychosis. Have I gone too far, perhaps, but you know what? I don’t care because this is the mood I’m in, and this is all making sense to me. For some reason, ‘My Angel Rocks Back and Forth’ has become an anthem in my head to all things weird and manic. But, I digress. My connection with Kieran/Four tet started only about three months ago. As I was preparing the magazine, I was informed he was up for a phoner (a phone interview for those of you who don’t know) and was available during my trip to Paris. "That’s fine," I said, "I’d love to interview him." And I would. From what I’d heard from Four tet, which was admittedly very little, I was intrigued. The music behind Rounds lends itself to interpretation, with each new beat and background sound opening up new doors in the experience. I felt by interviewing Kieran, I’d be able to understand what’s inside his head. What makes him create such beautifully subtle music? "I feel that creating a mood is really what music is all about," he answers me. "I feel like when I listen to Rounds, it reflects what I was doing at that time." "Kinda like a musical diary?" I add. "Yeah, like I’ll listen to a song, and it’ll take me back to exactly where I was when I was making it. I can’t recreate Dialogue now, because it’s where I was then. It’s good to go back and listen every once in a while though, just to remember where I was" I continue to prod and pick at where his sounds come from, using a reference of spinal tape to lighten the mood. "You know, they say there’s a sound that can kill you." He says, "It’s weird how certain sounds correlate to feelings, but they do." It’s strange, somehow, I was expecting to find someone who sits back and reflects, and would give me long, strange, languid answers on the meaning of life. Instead, I get someone who seems almost nervous and out of place. He answers my general questions with personal experience, and my personal questions with general answers."You were labeled as a wunderkind by the media, how do you feel it’s affected your growth as an artist?" I ask, awaiting some tales of a lost childhood, and perhaps a slightly inflated ego. Instead I get an uneasy response. "You know, I didn’t really notice it," he observes, "just kinda continued making music."I turn my line of questioning towards the future, trying to discuss his collaboration with Beth Orton. "We haven’t started working together yet, just getting together and working on some basic ideas." He mentions his love for the hip-hop beat, and I ask him if, in future, his collaborations will be of the hip-hop variety? "I think the collaborations you want do do, are always the ones most out of reach. I don’t even think about it, I think the best collaborations come about in a natural way."Pouncing on the idea that Kieran is a master of music knowledge, consisting of giant libraries of music, as well as his affiliation with Radiohead, I wonder if he feels a certain amount of pressure to keep up to date musically? "I think I give myself pressure. I think that as a music fan, you have that [need] to check out all the new records you read about." He enthuses. "You know, I’m someone who makes music for the current musical climate. I’d like to think that I’m the kind of person that makes music that’s relevant to it." Ahha! I’ve gotten somewhere, but my time is almost up. I figure I should continue with this line of questioning: "Where will your music go in the future?" "I never like to know what I’m going to be doing in three months time" he says, "I have quite an amazing life, I really enjoy it. I like the way I never know what I’ll be doing in three months time." I decide I should aim my questions back at music, "Do you feel that if one day fridge ends, and four tet ends, will the music still be in you?" "I can’t imagine not being involved [with music] somehow. It’s been there for as long as I can remember, so it wont just go away." As we say our goodbyes, I’m left with a weird feeling. As if I’ve asked the wrong questions, but he’s given me all the answers to the questions I could have had. In a weird way this makes sense. Four tet’s music, is, really, a reflection of Kieran. It’s personal, and ambient all at the same time, and I think perhaps it’s better left that way.