While that mood is certainly apparent, that is not to say that the album isn't teeming with exciting details and intricacies. The opening track, 'School', immediately introduces a continuation of the sound heard in his recent releases, as well as tracks off 'New Energy' such as 'Planet'. The rattling open hi-hat gives a sense of frenzied momentum to bounce off the steady pace of the bassline and chimes of synth melodies. This is followed by 'Baby', the main single released in the build up towards the album. The cheekiness in the rhythmic patterns of the drums is reminiscent of classic garage, encapsulated within the ethereal world of calm in Kieran's production and Ellie Goulding's angelic vocals. As with the visuals provided by Joanna Nordahl, the track feels flies high through vast lands, landing in an isolated glade during the stillness of the middle as we drop close to silence. As the drums come back in, our wings spread and we rise up into flight once more.
One element that seems consistent in Four Tet's music is its inherent futuristic tone, having an other-worldly element that takes it further than the world as we perceive it today. As such, 'Harpsichord' takes its namesake as the lead, an instrument from the renaissance and baroque periods, to create a moment of ambience suspended between the nostalgic and celestial, like the folklore of foreign galaxies. The harpsichord can also be heard embedded in the textures of 'Teenage Birdsong' which follows. The opening almost sounds like some sort of clockwork mechanism being wound up, and the melody that follows like the call of a cuckoo-clock. Its eccentricity establishes variety whilst still maintaining the mellow tranquility heard in the album so far. Kieran continues to use the technique of recalling the preceding track in 'Romantics', which itself is peppered with samples of birdsong. Gorgeous harp melodies punctuate the foreground like sun rays, with pitched-up vocal samples dotted around them like white clouds. Rhythmic elements are kept minimal, only keeping the pace steady rather than establishing a solid beat too bluntly.
As we reach 'Love Salad', the momentum begins to build. Emphasis is certainly on the beat here, and tensions rise and fall through the track as waves crashing down on a beach, with dense textures dropping back down to the 'click, click' of the wood block. The track marches on, featuring the most extraterrestrial elements thus far, but its edges still feel soft yet. At this point, Kieran has primed us for something club ready without it feeling ill-fitted in the album, and so enter 'Insect Near Piha Beach'. We get four bars of reverbed, filtered introduction before the kick smashes in with one of his classic style beats. The track centres around a stunning 16-bar melody of broken chords, rising from the depths to a climactic peak and sinking back down, played on a plucked string instrument brimming with mysterious spirituality. It's the type of sound you expect to pull you into a trance, and paired with the heavy four-to-the-floor, you can just imagine losing yourself again and again on the dancefloor. The track could easily end around 04:20, but instead, he plays the sample one more time, simply reversed, on its own, before tailing off into a final silence. Beautiful.
'Hi Hello' and 'ISTM' provide us with some interludes, the former recalling a Japanese dojo and the latter pairing some more birdsong with the wanderings of piano notes. 'Something in the Sadness' utilises intricate layering of evocative melodies that build up as the song progresses. As such, it has one of the strongest narratives in the album, as if the bells and tones are chattering together to really tell us something, and to me the message is one of hope, as the combination of so many different sounds and patterns can create something so dazzling. The single minute of '1993 Band Practice' is purely ambient, and marks a movement back into true tranquility once again. 'Green' opens with further birdsong, and after some reversed piano chords, an assortment of beeps, quite like those in 'LA Trance' play over some rapid movements in the lower, further back parts of the soundscape.
'Bubbles at Overlook 25th March 2019' is an interesting one. All of these tracks can make you feel like you are transcending reality in some way, but here, if you close your eyes, you can imagine for a moment that you are inside some sort of test tube, dormant, on the edge of existence, but not quite there yet. In contrast, the drone bass note that opens '4T Recordings' firmly grounds you, focusing on the stillness within. Scattered vocal samples are heavily sustained, and fly above with the birdsong, broadening the texture without disturbing the peace. 'This Is for You' is another representative of hope for me, this time in its continued use of upwards arpeggios, like hands reaching up, stretching into the blue sky. It precedes the final track on the album, 'Mama Teaches Sanskrit', a wonderfully tender moment to end on. Chimes bounce around with delay echoing around our ears as a mother teaches her daughter to speak the ancient Eastern language, an intimate moment, passing on knowledge from antiquity. With something so beautiful in concept, there is little need to add too much complexity, and so the few notes Hebden uses simply allow the atmosphere to subtly envelope the scene.
