(Domino)

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Before he swapped sound files with dubstep heavyweight Burial for their early 2009 Wolf/Moth Club single, London's Kieran Hebden had been a member of revered post-rock project Fridge, he'd collaborated on a number of occasions with jazz drummer Steve Reid, remixed everyone from Madvillain to Black Sabbath, issued a monstrous DJ Kicks contribution, and took on an opener slot for a Radiohead tour. Not unlike his rapidly accelerating eleven-year career, Hebden's output as Four Tet has splintered across the horizon in a dizzying multitude of musical directions.

The productions bearing Kieran Hebden's name have run the gamut from meditative, acoustic/laptop blends to dayglo-flecked dance music, and have included all of the eclectic and drum-heavy styles in between. On his fifth full-length solo album, Hebden explores more of the refined and understated house and techno that characterizes his 2008 Ringer EP, with a generous bundling of the organic elements that have so often enriched his work.

Crackling atmospherics, unrelenting locked grooves, and layers of immaculately organized, cascading accompaniment - There Is Love In You (out this week on Domino) stirs and sweeps, its loop-centric tapestries as lively and as affecting as its uncoiling electronic flourishes. Like much of Ringer, the sensual pre-There Is Love single "Love Cry" holds fast to Hebden's affinity for a slow build. Everything repeats ad nauseum here, but not in the manner that wallpaper-styled minimal techno does. "Love Cry" springs from a solemn percussive place of dry snares and zipped-tight hi hats, but it opens up eventually, with the producer pushing synth bass and a wondrous, disconnected pattern of reverse dial tones just ahead of its mystifyingly live-sounding drum set. "Circling" is a less frantic nod at Ringer's "Ribbons", with arpeggios trickling out of every source possible. It gets even better toward the end; when stuttering guitar lines curl around "She Just Likes To Fight", the track falls thankfully far short of embodying the aggression intended, even amid all of that kitchen-sink percussion.

When the Four Tet-Burial partnership yielded a striking, much-discussed twelve inch, the potential for an ongoing project between the two audiofiles garnered ample speculation. In the meantime, Kieran Hebden serves up melodies and ideas again on his own that captivate just as easily via There Is Love In You, be those far more decorative and high-spirited compared to his work alongside Burial. And if there's a Wolf/Moth Club follow-up in the cards, it's likely Hebden will find the time to make it happen. He tends to do that.

Standout Tracks: "Circling," "Angel Echoes" DOMINIC UMILE