I don’t know about you, but I’m most definitely not a morning person.  I like to ease my way into the day with the lethargic spirit most reminiscent of a three-toed sloth.  Just as the A.M. dictates a different pace for yours truly, it also seems to have an effect on the kind of the music I jam to on my morning subway ride.  Unless it’s a Friday, or my birthday, the chances of me rocking out to the likes of the Arctic Monkeys, Blakroc or any of their boisterous brethren are slim to none.  Instead, I usually like to wake up the eardrums with more relaxed soundwaves and often find myself spinning the digital dial over to The xx, Ratatat, Orbital or M83 (<– favorite morning music ever). Why am I telling you all this? Well, I recently stumbled upon another artist who will calling the Morning Mix his home for the foreseeable future and I thought I’d bring him to the bakery for some breakfast…

I’m talking Four Tet folks, and I think soon you’ll be talking it too.  Four Tet is moniker of Kieran Hebden, a visionary from across the pond who has been creating post-rock electro dreams since 1998.  I’m know I’m supremely tardy to the Four Tet party, and frankly I’m a little disappointed that I haven’t run across Hebden’s experimental stylings before.  Discovering an artist this far into their career can be a little challenging (for me at least) because it’s easy to be intimidated by the size of their back catalog - but on the flip side, the good thing about discovering an artist this far into their career is that you have an entire back catalog to dive into for months/days/minutes of sonic exploration.  As Four Tet, Hebden has dropped (can non-hip-hop people ‘drop’ albums?) 7 albums in the last decade or so, but it is his newest release, There Is Love In You, that caught my attention here at the Train Station…

Forty seven minutes is all Four Tet needs to spin an elegant and esoteric electro tale for your ears.  The songs are mostly instrumental, yet somehow manage to take on a voice of their own throughout the course of their modest lifespan.  Some employ a simple back beat and meander over to minimalism, while others come to life with glimmering loops, strings and vocal samples.  Such a sample is but one of the colors of the kaleidoscope of sound featured in the haunting slow burner of an album opener, ‘Angel Echoes’.  The other song below, ‘She Just Likes To Fight’ manages to bubble under the surface for four melodious minutes, never giving too much to you except fragile waves of warm acoustics. I’m also of the mind that this jam would be a fine companion to a shot of a time-lapsed sunrise in a movie - try to picture that in your head and I think you’ll agree. Anyway, I ended up writing a lot more than I originally set out to, but I hope that I convinced you to take some time out of mornings to stop and smell the sounds.  Four Tet: Train Tested. Muffin Approved.

Four Tet - Angel Echoes

Four Tet - She Just Likes To Fight

There Is Love In You is available now at Amazon and wherever good music is sold.

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