Interview

One of the UK’s most forward-thinking artists tells us why he became one of the earliest adopters of Yamaha’s ground-breaking Tenori-on…

From the very beginning of his career Kieran Hebden – aka Four-Tet – has never played by the conventional rulebook. He was one of the founder members of the critically acclaimed band Fridge and his first ‘single’, Thirtysixtwentyfive, was named as such because it lasted 36’ 25”. That’s longer than many albums! His music, too, defies categorisation and includes elements of hip hop, jazz, techno and electronica seeping in and out seamlessly from track to track and sometimes even from bar to bar.

Hebden was perhaps unfairly filed under both the folktronica and intelligent dance music genres of the early 2000s, labels given to any band of the time that didn’t fit anywhere else. But while he almost seemed to try and defy any commercial pigeonholing, his music has found a home in high profile commercials (for companies like Nike) and even led him to open for Radiohead on their 2003 European tour, giving him unprecedented exposure.

He has also remixed a large variety of well known artists, including Aphex Twin, Beth Orton, Badly Drawn Boy, Steve Reich and the aforementioned Radiohead. To date Kieran has released four solo albums plus a remix album. He continues to break ground with his live shows and the odd mix album demonstrating as wide a range of tastes as you’d imagine from someone with such a varied output. All this and he’s not even turned 30 yet!

With his unconventional background it’s perhaps unsurprising to find that Kieran was one of the world’s first adopters of Yamaha’s Tenori-on light sequencer/sound module. In fact, it was at the instrument’s official launch in London that Hebden turned up and gave an impromptu performance, much to the surprise and delight of the assembled crowd. Since that launch Tenori-on has set the music world ablaze with its fusion of sound and light, a truly original instrument for the 21st century and a portable device that itself – much like Kieran – defies convention and description.

So you could say that Four-Tet v Tenori-on was always going to be a successful partnership, but how did Kieran hear about Tenori-on and, perhaps more importantly, how did he hear about it so early?!

“I was talking to a journalist from Future Music [UK music technology gear magazine],” Kieran tells us, “and they mentioned it to me so I went and checked the few clips that were on YouTube before its release.”

“I'm interested in anything that's about finding new ways to trigger and use samples and sounds,” Hebden continues, “and I also love using step sequencers, so this was just the sort of thing I'd be interested in.”

Live lights
Kieran has adopted Tenori-on for his live work and is currently playing with the American Jazz drummer Steve Reid, who has played with such luminaries as James Brown and Miles Davis. Kieran has been working with Reid since 2006 and their partnership has already resulted in three albums, which he has released under his own name (rather than Four Tet). The Exchange Sessions Volume 1 and 2 came out in 2006 while 2007 saw the third release, Tongues.
“It's really good for live improvisation,” says Kieran. “I use it to play rhythmically along with the drums just using the Push function, and I also use it to make dense washes of sound with stuff like the Bounce function. I also run it through effects and can get some crazy noise out of it – it just works really well at the shows because it's so visual.” 
And what about studio use?
“I've only used it a bit in the studio so far but hope to try more soon. It's good for programming drum and synth patterns and I've used the MIDI Out to control a synth – as an arpeggiator, basically.
In the future Kieran also hopes to make more music on his Tenori-on… “I use it on top of my main [studio] set-up at the moment, but I think I could make whole tracks on it if I tried. It's just something new that I can reach for on top of everything else.”
So what is it that Kieran likes best about the unit?
“I like that it's so portable,” he says. “I use it on train journeys and stuff just to mess around with ideas. And it's so quick to work on – you can get a lot of sound working together very quickly. It would be nice to be able to manipulate sounds more with filters and it would be great to be able to use longer samples, but it's a really small piece of equipment so I don't think they can fit any more circuitry in there.”

Kieran is keeping busy in 2008 with another album with Steve Reid, which he is currently finishing in New York, “and there will be plenty of touring next year, as usual.” But after achieving so much from such a young age – he started out in his teens – what else is there left to achieve for Hebden and what are his remaining ambitions?

“I'm just trying to do my own thing, something a bit different,” is the somewhat unsurprising answer “Think I'm done for now. Thanks.”

Selected discography
Albums as Four Tet
Dialogue (Output Recordings, 1999)
Pause (Domino Records, 2001)
Rounds (Domino Records, 2003)
Everything Ecstatic (Domino Records, 2005)
Four Tet Remix album (Domino Records, 2006)

As Kieran Hebden with Steve Reid
The Exchange Sessions Volume 1 (Domino Records, 2006)
The Exchange Sessions Volume 2 (Domino Records, 2006)
Tongues (Domino Records, 2007)
Title TBA (Domino Records, 2008)

Mix albums
Late Night Tales: Four Tet – DJ mix album (Azuli Records, 2004)
DJ-Kicks: Four Tet (Studio !K7, 2006)

NEUIGKEITEN/h5>

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