Four Tet – There Is Love In You

Maybe it’s just me but it’s been an extremely strong year for electronic music. Sure, it’s been a huge year, period, and it’s only getting better – I imagine 2010 will be special for many different people for many different reasons (phew…) – but I think music will always be able to capture the essence of any mood. And the best kind of music to have is that neutral kind that’s always great, no matter whether it’s rain or shine. Four Tet’s There Is Love In You is without a doubt, displaying what it means to be brilliantly skillful and absolutely gripping, all at once. Music is going to be the biggest headliner in the future, but to make, arguably, the best album in what is music’s best genre, is well, superb.

Four Tet’s There Is Love In You relentlessly drives away at the root of the core to break away any kind of misconceived smoke. The drive is a subtle one that merely hints towards its next movement; it’s like the repetition of techno, but instead of using booming basses, Four Tet blends in a stunning snare and even better instrumentation. And in that sense, it reminds me a lot of LCD Soundsystem’s music: the spellbinding instrumentation, the addition and complexity of layers, the sheer presence to know that placing a handclap on the outside of a shaker would be genius, There Is Love In You is just that, exceptionally remarkable. I look towards “Plastic People” in painting a dreary, mindless, rainy night that’s haunted by a descending, arpeggiated piano line and highlighted by a pulsing, tapping snare:


I had already posted about “Love Cry” and I had already mentioned this album in my top whatever of the first quarter so I’m beginning to think that I’m quite fond of it. “She Just Likes to Fight” is just so transcending and so poignant, that I often, almost, forget about it. It’s a beautiful melody, really, one that weaves around the counter guitar part and the steady tempo of the drums. But when it truly soars is when the music swelters to a steady rise of paced harmony; the pace is where the drive is pulsed and thus, it’s the album’s smooth closer at just over four minutes long. This is an outstanding album; easily one of the best, regardless of genre. – Bryan