Four Tet - Sixteen Oceans

Sixteen Oceans finds Four Tet balancing the club and the coastline, a record where dancefloor pulses and gentle ambient drift share the same breath.

Kieran Hebden's tenth album as Four Tet arrived in 2020 on his own Text Records, produced by Hebden himself. By then he had spent two decades as one of electronic music's most curious and generous figures, equally at home soundtracking a festival peak or a quiet walk home, and this record pulls both sides into focus.

Baby, featuring Ellie Goulding's voice woven through the beat, was one of the album's singles and lands as euphoric yet oddly tender. Teenage Birdsong lives up to its playful title with bright, fluttering melodies, and 4T Recordings, another single, keeps the energy bubbling. Between the bigger moments sit short sketches and interludes, with titles like Insect Near Piha Beach and Bubbles at Overlook 25th March 2019 hinting at the places and passing moments that shaped the music.

Love Salad and Something in the Sadness stretch out at greater length, giving the album its deep, contemplative middle.

It is a record that rewards close listening late at night on a good system, its pieces flowing like a single, carefully sequenced set from first note to last.