FOUR TET - THERE IS LOVE IN YOU Vinyl 2xLP

Perhaps spurred by the 4/4 tendencies exhibited on his 2008 Ringer EP, not to mention his recent dalliances with artists like Burial, Joy Orbison and Rusko, There Is Love In You undoubtedly has a more club-friendly feel than anything we may have come to expect from Four Tet's Kieran Hebden.

It would be equally legitimate to suggest that this record comes closer to the brazen musicality of 2003's Rounds than anything he's done since, and right from the start, you know this is going to be special: 'Angel Echoes' toys with looped female vocals singing the album's title while tuned percussion and plucked strings swirl about in an increasingly tangled up mix. It's quintessentially Four Tet, alchemically blending organic instrumentation with edited samples and laptop treatments in a gloriously tatty mesh. This is just the warm-up though: the massive, bass heavy drumming of 'Love Cry' marks a step into more dancefloor-geared terrain, although the sort of grit and swing embedded deep in the track suggests Hebden's still plundering old, obscure jazz LPs for inspiration.

 Switching into kosmische mode, the early-'80s synth designs and repetitive minimalism of 'Circling' exhibits shades of Cluster, Steve Reich and Italo disco, but 'Sing' takes the album up a gear once again; representing a real high point at the album's centre, it's a sublimely melodious house-styled concoction boasting intricate, squelchy beat programming and sliced up, wordless vocals. As a sequence, the album is masterfully tight and lean, and perhaps most significantly, it shows signs of real creative evolution: subtly, Hebden seems to be integrating the key sonic threads of the current UK urban scene into his dusty, sample-heavy sound - something that's underlined by a track like the booming 'Plastic People', with its melancholic atmospherics and authoritative beat production. A serious return to form, and a reminder of just how inspired Kieran Hebden can sound when he's at his best.