Everything Ecstatic

Four Tet | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 31, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Domino
• ASIN: B0009ESSGK
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #180,734 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Between the work of his pioneering band Fridge and the early Four Tet albums, Kieran Hebden did more than help invent "folktronica"; like all artists worth their salt he pushed the boundaries of the form before they were even drawn. Ecstatic is a fiercely rhythmic rollercoaster ride. The opening track, "A Joy," is a bass-heavy number that updates "No More Mosquitoes" from 2001's Pause. The staggered, double drum kit sound on the deliriously woozy, aptly titled "Smile Around the Face," is what the Boredoms might sound like in collaboration with Fraggle Rock . That sounds ridiculous but it's true. Elsewhere, chimes, gongs, bells and whistles enliven this poppy, woozy electronic record. You might even call the whole thing mystical, especially when lost inside the eight minute "Sleep, Eat Food, Have Visions." -–Mike McGonigal

Product Description

On his fourth proper LP, KIERAN HEBDEN returns with his most musically challenging record to date, a drum-heavy explosion of boombasticism, marches, breakdowns, and space. Placing abstract into a container of beautronica, this is an album of hope, experimentation, & reach.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Everythings Shambolic, May 31, 2005

By 

Stowaway (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Everything Ecstatic (Audio CD)

Kieran returns with a shambolic collision of order and chaos. Where "Rounds" was subtle and beautiful, "Everything Ecstatic" is bombastic and forceful.

Dont worry, he hasnt gone and made an industrial metal album!

Basically this album rides the two extremes of "Rounds'" personality: melody and spontaneity.

Where Rounds found a beautiful medium between these two, Everything Ecstatic shows the fight between them.

Crossing the territories of Hip hop, krautrock, foltronica (a label that never completely fit him anyway), spiritual jazz, and post rock, this album comes off as a beautiful mess.

In fact, its more like his work with Fridge than his previous Four Tet releases. Tracks often contain solid beats, and strong melodies that, as the song continues, are completely deconstructed. These tunes often end up in sonic chaos, noise bursts, and complete mayhem, before equilibrium is once again maintained and restored.

It is this collision that makes Everything Ecstatic both a fantastic recording, yet not quite cohesive and purposeful enough for five stars.

You can see the influence that his freindship with Dan Snaith (Caribou/Manitoba) has had. The crashing cymbals, melodic sensibility and sonic frenzies.

But rest assured, there is still a strong sense that this is a Kieran Hebden work. And a fine one at that.

4 stars.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Blew me away., March 17, 2006

By 

Steven Stroud (Aurora, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Everything Ecstatic (Audio CD)

I have been a big fan of Fourtet ever since I first heard "No More Mosquitos". All of his music was refreshingly creative and easy on the ears. He's demonstrated a keen ability to soften the normally harsher sound of IDM style beats time and time again. You still get a lot of that with "Everything Ecstatic"... real drum kits, guitar riffs and hand claps sampled and chopped, the same organic windchimes and buzzing insects. Luckily, Kieran has expanded his arsenal of sounds to include more traditional techno kits that he uses in some rather non-traditional ways. As another reviewer mentioned, he uses a lot more 303 and 909 patterns. These machines sound so cliched these days, but not here. Kieran breaths new life into them, making 303 patterns sound just as organic and natural as those buzzing mosquito wings. On other tracks he maintains some minimal techno flat beats worthy of Detroits dirtiest tech dancehalls.

This album is fantastic, plain and simple. I am glad to see Fourtet is evolving with the times rather than trying to maintain the status-quo that he helped create.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I liked/appreciated it, but it's in a way different place, January 9, 2007

By 

Professor Cornelius S (D/FW, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Everything Ecstatic (Audio CD)

I don't like to compare this to "rounds" or "pause" necessarily, but seeing as how this is in the same body of work, I'm kind of obliged. The previous albums had their abstractions and concepts but Everything Ecstatic takes that to an extreme. This album is obviously Kieran Hebdan coming into his Steve-Reid Exchange Sessions musical persona. There is alot less acoustic instrumentation and folk texture and more electric chaos. The record still sounds like four tet made it, but it almost sounds like the magazine articles pushed the "folktronica" tag so much that Hebdan abandoned it, and i don't blame him. It took me awhile as a Four Tet fan before i committed to buying this album, but when i did i still enjoyed it and gave it alot of time. I might go as far as to say I enjoy this more than "Pause", but the two records feel so vastly different that I couldn't justify doing so. Everything Ecstatic wins my praise, but it didn't make me fall in love with the Four Tet style like "Rounds" did.