Sixteen Oceans

Four Tet’s Sixteen Oceans is a mix of club and non-club tracks. The sixteen songs include several carefully layered chiming 4/4 grooves, School, Love Salad, Insect Near Piha Beach and Something in Sadness, all of which are near-Platonic-ideal-level examples of Four Tet’s warm, intricate organic take on techno.

In contrast, the album also includes several stately ambient tracks, a few miniature experimental pieces and, perhaps the highlight, Teenage Birdsong, its cheery synthetic flute riff disquieting in the context of the brooding beat and growling bass that drives the track. The fact that he manages to make so much happen in its sub-four minutes without it once feeling in any way hurried is quite the achievement. Plenty to like here, the constant push and pull between moods and tempos complementing the same impulse in the music itself.