Four Tet - Pause

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kieran hebden is, it has to be said, something of a genius. the groundwork for 'pause' was laid when 'dialogue' - his debut solo album under the guise of four tet - landed in 1999, an album that redrew the parameters of inventive dance music. a peculiar mix of live-sounding instrumental jazz and technologically super-precise laptop dance trickery, it sounded nothing like hebden's actual group - the post-rockers fridge - and, as it happened, very little like anything else in existence. where 'dialogue' employed jazz sax and flute in its evocation of a 21st-century jazz meltdown, 'pause' goes even further, coiling whispers of harp and zither over layer-on-layers of fidgeting, rattling percussion. his inspirations? well, like his friend and protege:, canadian tech-wizard manitoba (whose 'start breaking my heart' is easily the equal of 'pause'), hebden collects sounds and melodies from a dizzying array of places - ancient british folk music, the rattle of typewriter keys, the gurgle of running water, even a field recording of a children's playground. genius? there really is no other word for it. Show more