View Larger
Rate it!
Avg: 3.0 (25 ratings)
- Date Released: January 24, 2006
- Genre: Electronic
- Style: Abstract
- Label: Domino Recording Co
Another labyrinthine classic from Kieran Hebdan
-
We Say...
One of Kieran Hebden's more aggressive outings under the Four Tet moniker, Everything Ecstatic veers away from the rustic acoustic guitar loops which, for better or worse, came to represent his earlier work. Here, he replaces those sounds with low-pitched synth rumbles, buried beneath the drum machines like the unrelenting drone of a factory assembly line. There's still a familiar tenderness to the piano-driven reflection "And Then Patterns," but it contrasts heavily with songs like "Joy," on which his usual precise scripting is deliberately blurred and much harder to parse. "Sun Drums and Soil" is the towering success, easily among the best tracks of his career, but it's probably "High Fives" that serves as the best snapshot of this stage in the evolution, with the husky new background grunts meeting infantile xylophone melodies and punctuated by pointedly electronic filters and volume swells. The replay value comes primarily from swimming through all the details, which aren't necessarily intricate, but are impossible to keep track of just the same: fading cymbal crashes and subtly pulsing bass lines seem to pop up everywhere you turn, usually stemming from a starting point four bars back which you missed because, well, there was something else going on back there too.
-
They Say...
Kieran Hebden had every right to retreat from the folktronica tag stapled to his Four Tet recordings. Although he was the premier name in the sub-subgenre, and although his productions transcended even the cutest label that could be attached to them, the folktronica term was too clever by half; more importantly, no respectable artist in the indie underground can stand idly by while he's being pigeonholed. Nevertheless, the left turn Hebden has taken into jumpy Krautrock with 2005's Everything Ecstatic will make listeners yearn for the clever, nuanced productions he turned in on Pause and Rounds; fortunately, he hasn't completely forsaken his old ways. Early in the program, Hebden sounds more clearly derivative than he ever has; the spotlight track "Smile Around the Face" has one of Kanye West's chipmunk divas blandly merging into a sunny-day Avalanches production. "Sun Drums and Soil" begins with the menacing bell tones of an Autechre track and ends with the blatting horns of a free jazz workout, but the barrage of a percussion section never relents over six minutes. "Clouding," a criminally short interlude, is a turning point for Everything Ecstatic -- all of the album's best moments occur on the second half (and they are very good). "Turtle Turtle Up" and the shifting epic "Sleep, Eat Food, Have Visions" are nominally electro productions, but they're some of the oddest and most attentively produced electro tracks to ever appear on record. (On the latter, the slight influences of the Orb are assimilated into the whole, not pasted on top.) The final track, "You Were There with Me," transforms the sound of Balinese gongs into an isolated, nightmarish production with only a faint heartbeat for a rhythm track. Hopefully, using Everything Ecstatic as necessary distance, Hebden can either return to the sound of his early records or transform his new direction into styles worthy of his production talents. [Domino subsequently released the record in an intriguing DVD/CD combination. The first disc was a DVD including films of every song on the original Everything Ecstatic record. The second disc was a half-hour EP of new material that also included extended versions of "Turtle Turtle Up" and "Sun Drums and Soil." The DVD portion earns high marks; most of the films function as high-quality student or festival films, excepting only "Smile Around the Face," which gets a professional, MTV-ready workout from director Dan Wilde. The CD portion is also a very good addition, a noisier, more experimental vision of the original record.]
“ The indie iTunes — Hardcore music fans are migrating to eMusic, the iTunes Music Store's cheaper, cooler cousin.”
Rolling Stone
This album includes one or more tracks available only with a full album download.
eMusic Tip
Paid downloads are counted towards an album discount but free downloads are not.
COMPLETE FOR FREE!
You can download the rest of the tracks from this album for free! Just click the Complete Album button.
We’re sorry this album can only be downloaded using paid subscription download credits.
We recommend you Save it for Later by clicking the Save for Later button shown just above this message. For a list of related albums you can download right now, check out these recommendations.
We'll give you 12 additional free credits to download this album and start your paid subscription.
Get 12 bonus credits on us if you download this album. Sweet!
| 01. |  |
Turtle Turtle Up (Extended Version) |
16:16 |
|
| 02. | |
Sun Drums And Soil (Part 2) |
5:31 |
|
| 03. | |
Watching Wavelength |
4:31 |
|
| 04. | |
This Is Six Minutes |
6:03 |
|
| 05. | |
Ending |
0:50 |
|
05 Total Tracks, 33:11 Total Length
Loading...
Playlists If you like Four Tet, check out these member playlists
Explore music recommended by Four Tet fans
Credits
- Simon Tindall - First Camera Assistant // Danielle Wilde - Director // Danielle Wilde - Editing // Kieran Hebden - Director // Kieran Hebden - Director // Kieran Hebden - Producer // Kieran Hebden - Producer // Sam Jeffers - Credits Director // Jason Evans - Photography // Jodie Mack - Director // Matthew Cooper - Layout Design // Ed Holdsworth - Director // Ed Holdsworth - ? // Kathryn Bint - Director // Alexis Burke - Illustrations // Isobel Conroy - Producer // Nicola Frost - Make-Up // David Groom - Production Assistant // Josh Hams - Producer // Dan Haythorn - Effects // Mark Heap - ? // Williams Jeffers - Director // Martyn Richmond - Production Assistant // Molly Tudhope - Location Coordinator // Woof Wan Bau - Director // Marcel Zyskind - Cinematography
Choose from over 7 million
music downloadseMusic features legendary and emerging artists in every genre: classic rock to classical,indie to international, soundtracks to spiritual, jazz to country and many more.
MP3 downloads work on any digital media player
With eMusic, you OWN your music without any restrictions. Burn music to a CD, play it on your computer, mobile phone or any digital media player - including iPod®, Zune® and Walkman®.
Songs available for 50¢ or less
eMusic subscriptions start at just $11.99 a month for 24 downloads - that's just 50¢ per song! And it gets better from there - our plans go as low as 42¢ per song!
Music Discovery
eMusic is about discovery. We make finding new music fun again with music recommendations from our award-winning team of music experts, member playlists and new music features.
Cancel anytime
With all the great music and site features we're pretty sure you will love eMusic. If not, no problem. You can cancel at any time and keep the music you have downloaded.
© 1992 - 2009 All Media Guide, LLC