The Decade in Music

Released: October 2, 2001 
Metacritic Score: 85 (155th) 
Genre: Electronica, Post-Rock 
Length: 43:08 (11 Tracks) 
Label: Domino Records 
Follows: Dialogue

Seeing the genre listed as “electronic,” I wasn’t completely sure what I was getting myself into with this album until I started playing it.  Obviously electronica comes in a lot of different forms, some of which I’m not usually a big fan of.  I don’t really listen to pure electronica, and I’m definitely not a dance-techno fan.


Listen to "Everything Is Alright"



However, I do very much enjoy the downtempo style offered by bands like Zero 7 and Thievery Corporation, especially as background music when I’m either falling asleep or working on my computer. Thankfully, Four Tet’s style tends to be much closer to downtempo than dance, although comparing Pause to albums by Zero 7 or Thievery Corporation is still something of a stretch.

The most notable disparity between Pause and my favorite Zero 7 material, is that the use of vocals is pretty sparse, with the emphasis obviously placed on production, sound manipulation, and experimentation. Personally, I enjoy one or two fully instrumental tracks on an album with a lot of vocals more than one or two vocal samples on an album with mostly instrumentals.

Perhaps the root of that preference is that as a non-musician I have a harder time recognizing brilliant musicianship than I do excellent lyricism. Whatever the reason, my preference for lyrical-based music is personal taste, and there are plenty of people who would just as soon have it the other way around.

All that aside, Pause was still quite an interesting and enjoyable listen.  While I can't guarantee you'll like it, I can say with certainty that you'll hear sounds and instrument combinations you probably haven't encountered before unless you're already into the whole ambient-electronic scene in which case you probably know a heck of a lot more about Four Tet than I do anyway.

Things I loved

• Variety.  One of my main criticisms with this type of electronic music is that, to me it can start to feel monotonous. Four Tet succeeds at bringing wide variety of sound to the table, and packs an eclectic mix of influences, instruments, and techniques into the album’s eleven tracks. It gives the album a sense of exoticism and unpredictability that added a lot to the experience without ever making it feel disjointed.  

• The fact that an acoustic guitar is used so prominently in an electronic album is a fantastic example of my last statement.

• The recurring type-writer motif definitely provided a nice sense of cohesiveness to the album and helped to rein everything in. Actually, Four Tet's overall use of found audio samples was one of the album's strong suits.

Bottom Line

Definitely not my favorite album of all time, but so far the more I’ve heard it the more I’ve liked it. To me it isn’t captivating enough that I’ll sit and listen with my focused attention, but I have no doubt it'll find its way into my rotation as something to play in the background while I’m working on paintings, designs, etc.

Rapid Fire 

Favorite Track: Everything is Alright
Also Loved: You Could Ruin My Day

Least Favorite: Tangle, I'm gonna say.
Best Moment: There’s this segment during the end of the second track that stood out to me…I don’t really know how to describe it—sort of a gradual metamorphosis in sound (almost like a switch from stereo to a lo-fi mono recording) that I thought was pretty interesting.

Pause on Amazon
Four Tet on Last.FM

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