Ringer

Album Review

Trying to predict a future direction for Four Tet after Kieran Hebden's time recording with everyone from Steve Reid to his old trio Fridge shouldn't even have been attempted, but the Ringer EP is still a big surprise. Sounding like it was recorded ten or sometimes 20 years earlier than it actually was, the four-tracker reconciles Hebden's mesmerizing early Four Tet material with the sound of IDM circa the early '90s and, also, the movie soundtrack style of the '80s popularized by Tangerine Dream for Risky Business and John Carpenter for Halloween and Escape from New York. The title track is the best, where Hebden spends ten minutes interweaving a dizzying array of changing parts over a plodding four-four beat.