Kieran Hebdan (AKA Four Tet) can count Radiohead’s Thom Yorke among fans of his constantly evolving electronic compositions. But how did he get, ahem, all that jazz?

The musical adventure of Putney-native Kieran Hebden started in the band Fridge, alongside Sam Jeffers and Adem Ilhan. However, it would be with his own electronic project Four Tet that Hebdan would truly find fame. Debut solo album Dialogue (1999) showcased Hebdan’s jazz infused hip hop, though he would really hit stride with the folk-tinged electronica of Pause (01) and Rounds (03). This neatly woven, complex and quite beautiful music gained Hebdan admirers from all around the world. Success, however, did not stop him from veering off into new territory with fourth album, Everything Ecstatic (05), on which he flexed with a darker, more aggressive electronic sound.

“I’m always consciously trying to push my music forward,” says Hebdan. “Whenever I work on a new record it is always about how I can make it different. It’s the idea of trying to find new combinations of sounds and trying to push things in new directions that hopefully haven’t been considered or imagined before.”

Aside the release of the Ringer EP in April 08, most of Hebdan’s recent attention has been devoted to a series of remixes for everyone from Madvillian to the Kings of Convenience. Many of these excellent versions were drawn together on the Remixes album (06).

“The remixes have been brilliant, I really enjoy dong them,” he explains. "On a creative level its fun and it’s the chance to collaborate with some really great people. It also helps to perfect my production techniques. However, recently I’ve had to slow that down because I found that I was doing so many remixes that I wasn’t really working on my own stuff.”

A new Four Tet release is now seriously on the agenda, as Hebdan is “tinkering with ideas” to come up with “something unexpected”, and, despite largely being considered an electronic artist, jazz has underpinned much of what Hebdan does. He describes jazz as a “constant source of inspiration” and for the past three years he has collaborated with legendary jazz drummer Steve Reid on a series of live shows and recordings. This has included the Exchange Sessions Vol. 1 and 2 in 06, followed by Tongues in March 07, and most recently NYC which was released this month.

"From the second that I started working with Steve it changed my musical outlook forever," Hebdan enthuses. "I realised that all sort of musical possibilities had arrived that I hadn't even considered. Being able to work with someone who has jazz in their blood has been an amazing learning and musical experience.

"One of the really good things about working with Steve is that he listens so closely.We are able to have such a close musical communication between each other which means we can come up with things very quickly without much of a rehearsal. I can just play him a bit of a melody and he can come up with the rhythm to fit it. Then we just go from there."

As a quiet and unassuming character, Hebdan is far from the ego-centric star that his profile might assume. In fact, for him, it really is all about the craft.

"I just want to make music," he explains. "I don't have any aspirations to be a pop star or anything like that. The composition is the main starting point of everything I do."

NYC by Kieran Hebdan and Steve Reid is out on Domino Records.

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