Five years since his last album as Four Tet, Kieran Hebden has further refined the glistening synthesis of acoustic samples and laptop beats (clumsily dubbed 'folktronica') that he pioneered in the early noughties. This record is more club-oriented than its predecessors; it namechecks Shoreditch sweatbox Plastic People, buries looped harps and percussive clatter deeper amid digital feints and warped female vocals, and recalls the labyrinthine mid-90s techno of Orbital in its intricate structure and design. But a sense of bucolic serenity remains, most notably on the aptly-titled "This Unfolds", which develops from a simple guitar figure into a rich ecosystem of sound over eight glorious minutes.
