- When lightning strikes twice.
- A few years ago, Four Tet's Nelly Furtado-sampling "Only Human" set the internet on fire before finally getting an official, sample-cleared release. It felt like a call back to the days of "Getting Me Down," "Swims" and "Sicko Cell," when records would titillate crowds for months before finally getting an official drop. The same thing happened with "Looking At Your Pager," which features another audacious sample—this time from 3LW—made as a bootleg and then later cleared for mass distribution.
You might think another ordained "big tune" centered around a vocal sample would be a tired idea by now, but let's give credit where credit's due: "Looking At Your Pager" is not only a major hit, but it's genuinely creative. Around one of Kieran Hebden's now signature garage-not-garage beats, he lays down that AutoTuned vocal—sweet but alien—sending it through a gauntlet of synths and basslines that sound like a stuck hard drive disk on its last legs. There's a breakdown that rivals the prettiest Pearson Sound songs, and another section where microtonal chimes recall Aphex Twin. But really, this is Four Tet's accomplishment. He's a man who knows not only how to create hype, but, somehow, how to live up to it too.