Fred Again and Four Tet Release Ambient Album Recorded in a Forest

Fred Again and Four Tet have released one of the year's most unusual and beautiful electronic albums, recorded entirely during a two-week retreat in an ancient forest. The project captures the duo incorporating natural sounds, from bird calls to rainfall to the creaking of wind-swayed trees, into a seamless tapestry of ambient electronic music that feels alive with the energy of its environment.

The recording process was deliberately primitive by modern standards. Working with minimal equipment, a laptop, a few synthesizers, and an array of microphones placed throughout the forest, the duo created music in response to the natural rhythms around them. Day and night cycles influenced the album's arc, with dawn recordings feeling appropriately delicate and midnight sessions taking on a darker, more mysterious quality.

The result is an album that defies easy categorization. It's too rhythmically present to be pure ambient music, too organic to feel like conventional electronic production, and too carefully structured to be mere field recording. Each track exists in a liminal space between human creativity and natural sound, inviting the listener to lose the distinction between the two.

The album comes with a recommendation from both artists to listen with headphones in a natural setting if possible. It's music designed to reconnect the listener with the physical world, a paradoxical ambition for electronic music that the album achieves with remarkable grace.