Four Tet

Kieran Hebden Interview

Four Tet agreed to do an unplanned interview 15 minutes before he was due to go on stage, which we will be forever grateful. This Electronica maestro has been high on our wishlist.

 

- Can you tell us a little bit about the band?

K: Ifve been involved in a variety of musical projects over the last 10 years or so. I was in a band called Fridge at first and released a few albums with them. They were more of an experimental rock outfit. Then I started to make live electronic music under the name Four Tet and have so far released four albums. At the moment, I am working a lot and collaborating with a drummer called Steve Reid and we tend to make live improvised electronic music with drums.

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- Youfve been involved in the music industry for 10 years now, how have you seen it change over the years?

 

K: For someone who is making electronic music, the technology has changed in extreme ways over the years. In some ways, it has been really exciting as the things that are possible now, with a laptop, couldnft be dreamt up 10 years ago. That is definitely something that feels special to experience.

 

- Ok, geek/tech question for you now; what setups are you using for both your live sets and in the studio?

 

K: For my live sets, I use two laptops. One runs a program called Audiomulch which has all the drum loops and main basslines and most of the stuff that has to be in time and the other laptop has all of the melodies, noises and effects.

 

Youtube : Kieran Hebden & Steve Reid - Tongues

This runs into the mixer, which also has a sampler in it, so I can make and create loops. In the studio, I use a PC with Audiomulch, Cakewalk and I also use Pro Tools quite a bit as well as it is pretty much a studio standard nowadays. More recently, I have been trying out Fruity Loops as I like to test all kinds of other stuff. With regards to Plug-ins, I like to use a lot of compressors and EQfs as well as Wave and Melodyne. Interestingly, I found that if you use stereo mixes with Melodyne, which is normally used for tuning vocals, you can get all kinds of weird effects.

 

- You play a lot live so can you tell us some examples of where your music has taken you?

 

K: All over the world really. One of the great priveleges of being a musician is that you get to travel a lot to many countries.

- With your hectic traveling schedule, how do you find a balance between playing live and producing tracks in a studio?

 

K: They are pretty equal at the moment. Obviously, I canft play at all the festivals I am asked to do and I canft produce tracks all the time either. But itfs always good to be able to turn down work as it means you can choose to do all the things that you really want to. In terms of what takes more precedence overall, I would say that I couldnft imagine myself not composing music. I think that without that, I wouldnft be doing the live stuff as the music production is the basis for what I do and the live sets are the next step after creating tracks.

 

Youtube : Four Tet - A Joy

Four Tet : www.fourtet.net

 

Written by Selph
     

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