Four Tet’s Squidsoup show: a spiritual experience in sound and light

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Four Tet‘s Shows Bring Together Diverse Audiences for an Unforgettable Music Experience

For years, Kieran Hebden has been a pioneer of a particular strain of UK club music. His music, also known as “Four Tet”, features a unique blend of woodwind and plucked instrumentation, combined with house, downtempo, and garage tempos to create a spiritual dimension to club music. Despite the differences in his fanbase, Four Tet’s shows have consistently brought together diverse audiences for an unforgettable music experience.

The recent collaboration with lighting artists Squidsoup has taken Four Tet’s concerts to a whole new level. A matrix of colored lights surrounds the crowd, and inside the light matrix, sounds swirl around you, and complex 3D light patterns crawl through you like a spectral creature. It’s a rare opportunity to not only hear and feel but to see music.

The diverse range of audiences attending Four Tet’s shows often includes uni students looking to see Fred Again and Skrillex, as well as fortysomethings looking to reminisce about the Rounds era. However, it’s the latter audience that gets what they came for with Four Tet’s music conjuring shades of tranquility, wistfulness, and healing.

Tracks often begin with a drum loop, and a familiar chime jumps in. On “Baby,” chopped-up vocals from Ellie Goulding swim through a watery ambience. On “Mango Feedback,” Hebden adds a five-minute noise section that sounds like being beside the Large Hadron Collider at full pelt, before cutting back to the original track like nothing happened.

While there are some split ends in this otherwise well-groomed set, with the conclusion featuring several dead stops after single tracks, the encore comes as a relief. Amid this one-of-a-kind experience, fans are delighted when Hebden starts up once again.

Four Tet’s music has a way of connecting with audiences of all ages and musical interests. With the collaboration of lighting artists Squidsoup, the shows take on a whole new dimension, unifying audiences in an unforgettable music and visual experience. Four Tet remains one of the industry’s most innovative and beloved artists, continuously pushing the boundaries of what electronic music can achieve.