Everything Ecstatic

The bold opening statement a joy with its gnarly drums and one-note distorted bass throb, signposts a change of emphasis on Four Tet’s fifth artist album. It’s a move away from the dreamy, hazy sonic worlds he’d constructed in his previous albums, upping the tempo and the funk in the drums, and developing a hectic futurist-arcane-jazz-funk element to the rhythms and chords. 

Drums and rhythm programming have always been a central part of the Four Tet sound and it’s clear that all the overdriven snares and FX-laden kicks on this album have been lovingly slaved over in the studio to achieve requisite levels of grime, distortion, atmosphere and drive. Taking the emotronica techniques he’d honed on his previous albums and increasing the pace and rhythmic complexity, Everything Ecstatic is another field-leading collection and one of his most cohesive albums.