First off, let me say that I spent much of my night at the Doug Fir on Thursday in legitimate fear of being vomited upon. Mind you, this is not a reflection on the crowd in general so much as one particular party, who had, in spite of her inebriated state, correctly identified the advantages of my chosen piece of real estate at the front of stage. And while normally this sort of thing would have an adverse effect on my enjoyment of the show, it is a testament to the performances of Nathan Fake and Kieran Hebden (dba Four Tet) that I managed to thoroughly enjoy myself the entire night. I even found myself surprisingly tolerant of my alarmingly intoxicated neighbor, who heroically suppressed the pyrotechnics and stuck it out all the way through the encore. What a trooper.
The evening opened with Fake, a prog-house DJ from Reading with a pair of excellent LPs to his name. Utilizing a modest setup of a laptop and accessories on what appeared to be a card table with a sheet over it, not quite concealing the milk crates underneath, the baby-faced Fake looked for all the world like a college kid DJing a house party. This rather delightful impression was only reinforced by the low concrete beams of the Doug Fir ceiling which, from my vantage point, loomed directly over his head.
Fake’s music, a complex blend of ambience and beats that flirts with trance without ever quite committing, took a little while to get the crowd warmed up, though some stalwarts near the front made for good cheerleaders. Eventually, though, head bobbing furiously to his beats, he succeeded in getting much of the room moving, only to throw them with off-beat transitions and unanticipated tempo changes.
Shifting between deliberate concentration and in-the-zone grooving, Fake was almost as compelling to watch as he was to listen to. Not that he necessarily brought a huge presence to the stage, but his manner was decidedly intriguing, and more than once I found myself wondering at his creative process as he progressed through his set. On several occasions when he deigned, via dance-friendly transitions, to carry his audience along with him, his bashful acknowledgment of the applause seemed to reveal something of his inner character--less a performer than a talented kid a little surprised that people have taken notice, an impression that stubbornly persists in spite of the fact that he’s nearing his 27th birthday.
Fake’s set, though generally entertaining and occasionally stellar, never really transcended that house party aura. Whether this was a drawback or not is largely a matter of opinion, but what is undisputable is that the contrast with Four Tet could not have been more acute. Set up at the same card table Fake had used, albeit at the opposite end, Kieran Hebden employed a baffling array of gadgetry and his distinctive, subtle stage presence to truly dazzling effect.
With his lazy Saturday wardrobe and characteristically untamed hair--he’s reminiscent of a slacker Sideshow Bob, really--Hebden’s unassuming appearance is a complete antithesis to the music he creates. Drawing as much inspiration from Ornette Coleman as any of his electronic forbearers, Hebden’s music brings a welcome sense of adventure and spontaneity to electronic music.
Hebden opened his set with “Angel Echoes,” the opening track from his current release, There is Love in You. Just as it does on the album, the serene, melodic tune featuring disjointed female vocals served to set the tone by counterpoint, seemingly lulling the crowd into pleasant complacency to set up a heavy, beat-driven piece that was a study in bass textures. It took only this for Hebden to have the entire room bouncing and writhing, with the set of acid droppers and otherwise enhanced consciousnesses behind me leading the way.
The Four Tet set was pure showmanship, quite a feat for a single man standing behind a table operating a laptop. Hebden’s jazz sensibilities seem to come into play here, helping him to overcome the essentially static nature of electronic compositions to create a dynamic, raucous performance. During “Love Cry,” the anchor of the new album, he had the crowd so thoroughly energized that I was torn between watching him and turning around to observe the action around me. It’s no easy task to command an audience’s attention and energy so thoroughly; Hebden seems to be a master at it.
With my neighbor’s condition steadily deteriorating, it occurred to me that Hebden had been playing for some time. A quick glance at my phone confirmed that he’d been at it for nearly an hour and a half, with no slackening of enthusiasm. He could have been forgiven, then, for simply calling it a night when he waved to the crowd and walked off the stage shortly thereafter. As it turned out, though, he wasn’t done, returning for a 15-minute encore, in which he once again pushed the crowd, completely undiminished, into a frenzy. When he departed the stage a second time, there seemed to be consensus that he’d earned his keep for the night.
Since the release of Rounds in 2003, Four Tet’s notoriety has steadily grown. In spite of a five-year hiatus between full-length releases, There is Love in You has been strongly received, and will no doubt get some serious consideration as one of the top releases of 2010. But the brilliance of his recorded work is only half the story. Hebden’s inventive style, like jazz, manifests itself most strongly in a performance environment. Listening to his albums is a great pleasure, but seeing him live adds another dimension to the experience.
