The album Rounds by Four Tet has a lovely natural feel to it. Traditional instruments are severalty sampled and then treated to the electronica production ethos that would usually be applied to synthesis, resulting in something fresh.

There are often arguments that the computer revolution has resulted in “lazyer” music. Created by producers which lack the technical proficiency of an instrument that was required until the development of the Digital Audio Workstation. I would argue that the skill for these artists comes from the art of production itself.

Bands still exist to appease the rhetoric “real music” fans. But now we also get this whole new development of music as we know it. Albums like Rounds do something that would have been impossible 30 years ago. Technology has progressed to the stage where an individual can compose a full album on a laptop computer. Along the way this freedom is only going to allow more diverse and interesting music and the work of Four Tet is a perfect example of this.