April 26, 2023

Four Tet - "Three Drums"


Four Tet drops a solo tune that brings back his easy going aesthetics and finds solace in chillness.

This past weekend, Four Tet, along with Fred again.. and Skrillex, closed out the main stage of Coachella. If you've been a long-time listener of Four Tet, that's a pretty wild statement. If you're a newcomer who has been following the IDM legend through his recent outings with these new friends, it seems perfectly inline following the trio's sold-out show at Madison Square Garden. However, before he was sharing the decks with the EDM/Dubstep giant Skrillex, Kieran Hebdan was making some of the most interesting electronic music of the past two decades. Today, he's shared a new track called "Three Drums" and it's a throwback style track to the songs and sounds he was making around the time of his classic record Rounds. "Three Drums" is a chilled-out psychedelic odyssey that ebbs and flows with majestic power, offering some of the most laid-back sounds we've heard from Four Tet in ages giving way to effortless, free-form jams that amble along at a gentle pace. Warm, spaced-out synths glow with luminous grooves and supremely chill rhythms give the song a lightweight vibe that make it a better soundtrack for daydreams than arena-level raves. This is classic Four Tet and takes us back to a place I wasn't sure Kieran would ever revisit in his career and certainly not an era I thought would re-emerge given his recent success with breakneck beats and boisterous drops that are destined to make a festival field bounce in mind-blowing unity. It's an expansive and enveloping song that offers fans a gateway back to the past. If the newfound success that Kieran has rightfully earned with the recent rise to fame enables him to bring this breathtaking sound to the masses, it'll be one of the greatest stories in electronic music history. 

"Three Drums" is out now.

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