Four Tet
My Angel Rocks Back And Forth EP
(Domino Records)
I likes me some Four Tet, that's no doubt. When I heard Rounds I knew it was only a matter of time before he became a much bigger name and although he's still not a household name across the world, he has done quite well for himself. "My Angel Rocks Back And Forth" is the third single from his recent album and instead of getting the semi-cold shoulder (as with his first two singles "She Moves She" and "As Serious As Your Life"), Domino is going all out this time around.
Well, close to it anyway. In addition to being a CD single (or EP if you want to call it that), the release contains a DVD featuring videos of every song that Hebden has ever had a video created for. It includes everything from the low-budget (and pretty silly, franky) video for "No More Mosquitoes" from Pause up through the latest (and quite surreal) video for the title track. It's easy to see that the vidoes have improved each time out. "As Serious As Your Life" is on the more silly end of things, slicing and dicing foootage of old school Morris dancers to great effect while "My Angel Rocks Back And Forth" is a great and rather surreal animation that again works quite well (in a completely different way).
The music on the release is all passable, but much of it doesn't stick out. The album track of "My Angel Rocks Back And Forth" opens the disc and is remixed by Icarus to an absolutely stunning effect as elements are chopped apart and spliced back together into a slowly-building track with plenty of backwards loops and a burst of percussion at the end that drives things through. Icarus member Isambard Khroustaliov takes another stab at the track to lesser effect while neither of the unreleased offerings ("I've Got Vikings In Me" and "All The Chimers") offer up much new in terms of sound from Hebden.
Considering the wealth of material available on the previous singles from the same album (including an excellent 30-minute remix of "As Serious As Your Life), I would have loved for this release to have even more material, but considering both the CD and DVD content, the price isn't too bad. If you're a fan of Four Tet, there isn't a lot here to get excited about (except the stunning Icarus remix), but if you're a completist and want to have the videos it's obviously a no-brainer.
Rating: 6.75
