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By Liam Bradford
Some 16,000 people tuned in to see Four Tet’s DGTL LIB Festival set on Sunday, May 24th. Leading up to his set the chat of the twitch stream began to fill up with people spamming messages urging him to get started, a digital expression of the feeling of being in a crowd full to the brim with anticipation for a show. Broadcasted from his home in London, Four Tet (real name Kieran Hebden) chose to forgo the green screen backgrounds that have been the common theme in many livestream DJ sets. Instead, Hebden was relaxing with a cup of tea, serving some serious plamp vibes from a small room during an overcast afternoon. His set began with a few ambient synth notes in a loop, but it didn’t take long for Hebden to begin throwing a myriad of beats and styles to go with the ghostly and ambient synths and vocal chops that define his sound. Included in these beats were some remixes of songs of his 2020 album Sixteen Oceans, along with a bevy of deep house, breakbeat and IDM beats, all set under floating, blissful sounds.
While he may have chosen to show himself in a plain room, Hebden’s set was not without visual flourishes. Overlaid on top of the video of the set were a number of different VJ loops that would loop and evolve for a minute or two before transitioning to a new one. Furthermore, the right corner of the stream’s screen was a revolving door of dancers and artists doing their thing. There was an artist doing a pour-painting at the beginning, which later transitioned to a few different dancers and another painter throughout the course of the set.
As the set continued to build and progress, so too did the intensity of the attached Zoom dancefloor. By the time Hebden was halfway through his set, the room was the biggest Zoom room I’ve ever been in, full of people dancing hard and smiling in their own homes and apartments. Hebden did a great set. Not a single beat fell flat, and it never felt repetitive or boring, but what really made the experience was the Zoom room. Even in isolation, the people in
the chat and Zoom room for the set still managed to create a genuine sense of communal fun and happiness. Dancing in my room along with them, I briefly forgot about the current state of the world and my personal anxieties and engaged in a truly shared experience, despite our physical separation. Amongst all the gloom and monotony of the last couple months, this set was a refreshing burst of energy and community, and a perfect example of how a livestream set can feel much closer to the real thing than you’d ever think. I’d gladly participate in a Four Tet livestream again, and I’m hoping when this is all over I’ll be able to see the real thing in person.
