Four Tet likely ranks among today’s least flashy performers of electronic music. In an era where most electronic shows are as much concerned with spectacle as sound, drugs a Four Tet performance still offers little in the way of visuals beyond one man and his table of gadgetry. That man is Kieran Hebden, illness the U.K.-based producer who has released colorful, shape-shifting music under the Four Tet stage name since the late 90s. What sets Hebden apart from any number of other laptop musicians, however, is his ability to make a set that’s mundane in appearance completely engrossing in sound.
Hebden’s live sets on this side of the Atlantic are few and far between, so it was no surprise that his show at Cambridge’s Middle East Downstairs as a part of the Together Festival was readily sold out. The evening was a cold one, and it became evident that someone had neglected to turn on the heat as the early arrivers filed downstairs. As with the previous Sunday’s Together-presented Flying Lotus show at the Paradise, a live DJ spun some tunes as doors opened. The hour-long gap between doors and a first opener is never a particularly interesting part of the concert-going experience, but watching a DJ craft a mix will always be more engaging than a blank stage and someone’s iPod on shuffle over the PA.
Boston resident Ricardo Donoso performed the first live set of the night. Armed with a laptop and a controller, Donoso sculpted a moody set of tense rhythms and ocean swells of ambient noise. His sound was reminiscent of an alternate soundtrack to the neon-soaked dystopian Los Angeles of Blade Runner. Between the blue stage lights, the pervasive chill and the inherently cavernous nature of a sparsely occupied Middle East Downstairs, things got rather atmospheric. New Yorker Anthony Naples was up next, spinning vinyl in an hour-long DJ set that managed to warm things up considerably. I won’t pretend to know enough about dance music to comment on Naples’ selections, but suffice to say he knows his way around a set of turntables and got the crowd moving.
Well after 11 o clock, Hebden took the stage at last. His set fell somewhere between the poles of his two openers: danceable, but with an experimental edge that kept the audience on their toes. Though much of the Four Tet catalog is often grouped under the ‘folktronica’ tag, mostly thanks to Hebden’s diverse sampling sources, 2012’s Pink saw him moving further in the direction of hypnotic, house-inspired music than ever before. His live set reflected that, stretching beat and bass-driven songs to upwards of ten minutes as he added and subtracted elements and constantly refined his sound. Hebden is a counter-argument to anyone who claims that all electronic musicians are simply pressing play during live performances. He was unceasingly engaged in his dual-laptop and multi-controller setup, methodically tweaking and adjusting.
Hebden wrapped up an hour-plus set with an extended “Love Cry,” a stunner from his excellent 2010 record There is Love in You. A 1 a.m. curfew left the show encore-less, much to the disappointment of a rapturously applauding crowd. With nary a flashing screen or light show to be seen, he had kept them utterly enthralled and still eager for more.
