Four Tet - Everything Ecstatic (Domino, 2005)

Another great sampling work. Kieran Hebden creates little wonders like this album allegedly using only a wave editor, Audiomulch in a PC with a Soundblaster card, connected to the speakers of an old stereo that he uses as monitors. He thanks Hot Chip for lending him the drum machine he uses in one of the songs. When asked about his favourite plug-ins, he says he never got into plug-ins that much - just listen to the album and you won't find it hard to believe - it's very creative copy/pasting and Kieran playing guitar, at times. It's also very interesting to aknowledge the influence that the sampling approach casts on the composition.

To an Audiomulch user, this album is even more strikingly beautiful in it's simplicity and directness. You can get it all wrong when you see Kieran Hebden sporting a Tenori-On in the Yamaha magazine ads, but this music's power relies on creativity, not on technical prowess, and that's just so refreshing in electronic music.