Four Tet
This past weekend I got a chance to attend what I expected to be one of the best concerts of 2010: Four Tet & Gold Panda at Webster Hall.
Gold Panda’s sound is a mix between hip-hop and house. The prolific UK-based producer captures the progeny of 70’s disco funk meets hip-hop with songs filled with interesting melodies which seem to have been sampled from traditional Asian and Middle Eastern music. Panda’s constant onstage movement is almost as engaging as his delivery of songs–often presenting stripped-down versions of tunes and letting them simmer and eventual boil to a bubbling pot of bass-thumping dance extravaganza. All in all, Panda’s 40-minute set left me overly satisfied yet still wanting more.
Four Tet
Fast-forwarding to Four Tet (Jon Hopkins played second, but the set was not even worth mentioning).
The main attraction of the evening–Four Tet aka Kieran Hebden–took the stage eager and ready to provide a momentous collection of warm, intricate yet minimal dance music. What surprised and intrigued me most about Four Tet’s hour-plus set was the repetitious tempo of all the songs most of which were from his latest release–There Is Love in You. The album consists of bass-heavy jazz and post-rock influenced dance music, best described as house for the indie-rock crowd. Four Tet’s live interpretations took his music to the next level: the BPM never flinched, the tempo and flow never halted, and in fact, gradually ascended to a climax only after the final song’s demise, leaving the crowd of 1,400+ stunned and mesmerized.
The pictures say it best.
