Diamonds from coal

Kieran Hebden is further proof that hit LPs aren’t always made in top studios. Mark Cousins discovers how the Four Tet sound is crafted.

It’s difficult to know what’s most intriguing about Kieran Hebden’s musical success – the fact that Four Tet is Radiohead’s support band of choice, or that he’s produced four critically acclaimed albums using a home-made PC and a hi-fi bought from Dixons at the age of 14. OK, maybe you’re thinking that his PC contains some kind of dream virtual studio, stuffed with cuttingedge software, but given that the majority of his tools – Cakewalk Pro Audio 9, Cool Edit Pro and Audiomulch – are either shareware or long-since superseded, this is clearly not the case. The truth is, whether by accident or design, Kieran has arrived at a system perfect for his creative needs: “I don’t want to worry about the equipment,” Kieran softly asserts, “I just want to think about my musical ideas and make them happen.”

This feature first appeared in Music Tech Magazine issue 30
Filed under Interviews

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