Kieran Hebden is 32 and was born in Putney, South London. Kieren has been on the scene for a while but is still at the forefront of music in the Worlds musical capital, continually pushing boundaries through his own productions, remixes and steaming hot DJ sets. For anyone that hasn’t experienced Four Tet Djing, be prepared to realise your record collection isn’t all that extensive and yes you really should dedicate more time to music. Catch Kieran at Plastic People on curtain road if you really want to see him in his element playing the tunes he loves. Kieran’s influences span wide: Folk, African, Garage, Electronica, Trip Hop, Jazz, Techno, drawing on everything he can find to keep his music from becoming stagnant and dated.
Kieran Hebden first emerged through the band Fridge which was released on Trevor Jacksons record label, Output, in 1997. Kieran’s early work as Four-Tet on Output fused together hip hop and soulful beats with jazz samples, always composed in an abstract yet intensely refined way with magical neo-classical production.
In 1999 Four Tet released a remix of a tune from Aphex Twin’s selected ambient works on Warp records. This helped him gain the attention of IDM and electronic fans, genres for which Warp is renowned for. Remixes for Bonobo, Beth Orton, Radiohead, Matthew Dear, Nathan Fake, Bloc Party, Kings of Convenience, Madvillain and Black Sabbath have all helped build his reputation and draw fans from different and often opposed genres. A middle man of future music some might say!
In 2001 Four Tet released ‘Pause’ on Domino records, marking a shift in Four Tet’s music towards a more Folk inspired sound. After the release of Rounds, Four Tet’s second album on Domino, he had developed quite a following with his intricate ‘Folktronica’ sound. Leaving behind this sound with his last album ‘Everything Ecstatic’, Four Tet seems to be heading towards Dance music as his final destination, collaborating with Burial recently and creating an exceptional 2 track 12inch.
‘Dance music feels very fresh to me right now… now that it’s moved back underground, I go to clubs and you notice that people are really there for the music, not because they’ve read about a certain club or DJ in a magazine, the way it used to be several years ago. It feels very inviting. I DJed for nine hours the other night. It was just so fantastic, just this long night being able to explore all these different kinds of music while soaking up the atmosphere.
Musically, dance music just seems so much more adventurous and experimental than a lot of the other worlds I’ve been involved in.’
Looking forward to what he’s going to pull out the bag next!