The Exchange Session Vol. 1 was a highly progressive record of the outwardly completely unrelated Kieran Hebden (alias Four Tet) and Steve Reid. One wouldn’t directly match Hebden’s background in post-rock and his eclectic electronic music with a legendary jazz drummer like Reid. However, if you consider some of the names that Reid has worked with, i.e. Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman and especially Sun Ra, it’s hard to miss their association with electronic instrumentation. A quick glance at Four Tet shows enough of Hebden’s interest in free jazz to give insight in the logic of this collaboration.

Although I cannot provide in an opinion about volume two, the first release of Hebden and Reid’s teaming was absolutely stunning. Both the drummer and laptop artist leaped the boundaries of their respective genres to create not merely a fusion of styles, but a whole new window in the wall of music. Hebden’s rapid-fire of electronic noises worked amazingly well with Reid’s unmistakable interest in African percussion and its quasi-stasis. Opening with Morning Prayer, the immediate reference to the earliest pre-Tortoise nearly unheard masterpieces of La Monte Young’s Dream Syndicate emerged. While Reid did not exactly sound like Angus Maclise and Tony Conrad and John Cale’s violin and viola drones were not exactly represented by the lowest of Hebden’s layers, one could almost hear Young’s soprano commencing one of his eternal, static, lightning fast solos just before Hebden bent the comfortable timbre into compelling electronic noises, twirls and glitches.

Admitted, expecting a new album to be in line with previous success is a form of bias. But I really feel Hebden pulled Tongues to the ground by the application of his pop structures. Maybe if was an effort to crystallise the sound into a “listenable” album, or to structure the ideas that had been running quite randomly across the fifteen minute jams, or maybe it was just to do something completely different than what would be obvious in the environment of improvisation. Whatever the reason, I personally don’t think it worked, perhaps Reid would have protested if it wasn’t for his more mainstream experience. Surely, a little some of the jazzy warmth remains present on the album, but although it’s an interesting slap of avant-garde, it doesn’t quite breath the intense mood of the debut. Maybe four minutes is just not enough to get the feeling of an improvisation, or maybe Reid should have been a lot more self-centred to be a bigger factor in what leans a lot closer to another Four Tet album than its predecessors. Whatever the reason, the album might have worked a lot better if the great idea started on The Exchange Session Vol. 1 would have been pulled towards something like the Vibracathedral Orchestra in stead of pop and cheese. I really admire the courage that it takes to do something different just when you’re feeling comfortable with the last thing, but that will raise my curiosity for oncoming releases rather than a desire to listen to Tongues.