02: FOUR TET
‘THIRTYSIXTWENTYFIVE’
(OUTPUT 2×12″, 1998)

Hebden’s first single as Four Tet: longer, and ultimately not as satisfying as the next track on our list, but in its combination of jazz, ambient, post-rock and electronica, not to mention its bleeding romanticism and attention to detail, it would set the tone for the rest of Kieran Hebden’s life accordingly.

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03: APHEX TWIN
[CLIFFS] (FOUR TET REMIX)
(from WARP 10+3: REMIXES, WARP CD, 1999)

It’s oversimplifying things to claim this is the precise point where Hebden went from post-rock curio to IDM poster boy, but the amount of remix commissions he received must have trebled after this contribution to the remix CD from Warp’s 10th anniversary release. A gorgeous track that takes the creeping ambience of Aphex’s original, the opening track from Selected Ambient Works II, and the skittish jazz of Amon Tobin’s Bricolage, then basically combines the two. Props to Tet’s remix of Radiohead’s ‘Scatterbrain’, which didn’t make this list but wasn’t far off.

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04: FOUR TET
PAUSE
(DOMINO LP, 2001)

‘Everything is Alright’

I’ve not felt inclined to revisit it all that often, but I remember how impressive this record was on its release in 2001. Here is where the Four Tet sound is firmly established, and it features what is arguably his single greatest production, the tremulous wonder ‘Everything Is Alright’. Oh, and it’s to his infinite credit that Hebden has now completely escaped the “folktronica” tag that the media lumbered with him around this time.

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05: DEMPSEY
‘ODB ON THE RUN’
(OUTPUT 7″, 2002)

‘ODB On The Run’ – a collaboration with Geoff McIntire – is a ramshackle, electronically treated barroom blues ditty that pays tribute to the outlaw antics of everyone’s favourite Wu-Tang member. It’s not going to change your life, but as whimsical, pop culture-referencing 7″s go, it’s pretty sweet.

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06:  FOUR TET
ROUNDS
(DOMINO LP, 2003)

‘My Angel Rocks Back and Forth’

For me Kieran Hebden’s most vividly realised album to date, one which combines complex acoustic instrumentation – exotic chime and string sounds abound – with some serious electronic scalpel-wielding. For all their sonic finery, some tracks veer towards slouchy trip-hop meh; the best tracks are those where Hebden lays off the beats a little – in particular the entrancing, impossibly precious-sounding ‘My Angel Rocks Back And Forth’ and ‘Spirit Fingers’. That said, ‘As Serious As You Life’, with its spidery guitar hook and tumbling gutter-breaks, is a personal favourite.

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07: MATTHEW DEAR
‘DESERTER’ (FOUR TET REMIX)
(GHOSTLY 10″, 2007)

Everything about this remix of a highlight from Dear’s career best album Asa Breed – from the drums, strings and piano intro, which sees the keys increasing in depth as it progresses, to the synths that twinkle into the fray like stars, to the contrast between the complex, fast-paced melodies and Dear’s dourly simple vocals, to one of the best choruses on any house track ever – is so finely put together; each individual part so right in its context here, that it’s impossible to diss. Sublime.

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08: KIERAN HEBDEN & STEVE REID
TONGUES
(DOMINO, 2007)

‘Brain’

Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid’s collaborations have a bit of a bad rep, generally regarded as “noodle-y” and beyond the interest of your regular music fan. But Tongues is an incredibly controlled and coherent album, and there are moments of genuine transcendence – particularly ‘Brain’ which has all the intensity of a Nuggets-era garage rock jam and the righteous ‘Superheroes’ which sounds like Can on an especially nasty whisky and amphetamine bender. Full of sneering synth-lines, ass-whumping bass and coruscating electronic noise, credit to Steve Reid for coaxing out of Hebden a level of aggression not even glimpsed elsewhere in his oeuvre, all sneering synthetic basslines and screeching, squalling guitar noise.

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09: FOUR TET
RINGER EP
(DOMINO 12″, 2008)

‘Ribbons’

Some of Four Tet’s most satisfying work has occurred when he’s dropped the jazz-tinged breakbeats in further of more linear, techno-style structures. Take, for example, his positively glowing remix of Nathan Fake’s ‘You Are Here’ (the best Kompakt tune that never was), or the ‘minimal’ mix of his own DJ-Kicks cut, ‘Pockets’. Alas these moments were rare and invariably isolated. It was a very welcome surprise, then, when Domino released Ringer – initially as an anonymous white label – an EP comprising three (four on the CD and subsequent official 12″) unique 4/4 confections from the Hebden laboratory.

The title track, a stripped-down, bleepy take on cosmic disco, is just ravishing; ‘Ribbons’ is another melodic gem, this time on more of a techno tip, burbling like deep sea anemones (not that I have any idea what the hell kind of noise a deep sea anemone makes). ‘Wing Body Wing’ is a woodblock-heavy, percussive house track that sounds like a lost Villalobos production (topped with Border Community-style “trendy trance” arpeggios), while ‘Swimmer’ is a dronier piece more in line with regular Four Tet output. One way or another, this might just be Kieran Hebden’s finest ever 12′ release, consummately well-produced and inexhaustibly dense and mysterious.

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10: FOUR TET & BURIAL
‘MOTH’ / ‘WOLF CUB’
(TEXT, 2009)

‘Moth’

I don’t know if it was ever confirmed that both tracks on this limited 12″ single were collaborations, or whether each simply took a side each, but the accepted view seems to be collaboration. ‘Moth’ is the best of the two tracks, and the one that sounds more like a joint effort: Burial riding the biting point between UK garage’s rhythmic structure and melancholy underbelly while Hebden contextualises with subtle chimes and keys, before Burial’s trademark vocals ring through the dusty mist for the track’s climax. Rarely are track names more appropriate. ‘Wolf Cub’ doesn’t quite reach those depths, but is a glistening piece of Reich-core nonetheless.