Four Tet – DJ Kicks (K7!/Inertia)

It has been yet another productive year of releases for Kieran Hebden. With each recent record he has moved further from his quaint and pretty orientalist ‘folktronica’. His collaborations with legendary drummer Steve Reid have allowed to him to explore his free jazz and improvisational interests, and his last mix CD – Late Night Tales – was full of exceptional and fluid choices. Not so with his latest mix CD in the production line DJ Kicks series. Apparently keen to show his ‘party’ side, Hebden tries to cram a lot in and ends up making a bit of a mess. Things start promisingly with Syclop’s mutant electronic funk fusing into Curtis Mayfield’s If I Were Only A Child Again, and on into some psych funk from Gary Davis and into Heldon. Then it goes horribly wrong. So Solid Crew’s Dilemma rudely bursts into Heldon like a poorly tuned radio, interrupting the groove in a way that might be acceptable in a fluffed live mix, but here just sounds sloppy. After that tracks are just faded together, and despite interesting selections including the chiming thumb pianos of Shona People Of Rhodesia’s Taireva and Gong’s equally chiming Love Is How Y Make It, and Autechre’s classic Flutter (from their 1994 Anti EP) there just isn’t any groove left. A totally unmixed version would have been preferrable and would have more effectively conveyed Hebden’s obvious desire to showcase his eclecticism.