It may seem as if Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden is arriving late to the country music party but, rest assured, this is not a case of uncharacteristic bandwagon-jumping. For one, the roots of this collaboration with former Lambchop guitarist William Tyler date back to 2020; for two, the pair’s new album doubles as a paean to the 1980s Americana Hebden’s dad played round the house when he was a kid (the record is named after his childhood home in south-west London) – music that Tyler’s Nashville songwriter father was professionally involved in.
Yet despite that neat backstory, the evocative title and the fact it begins with a reworking of country mainstay Lyle Lovett’s beautiful and sweetly bizarre 1987 track If I Had a Boat, 41 Longfield Street Late ‘80s is not an overtly nostalgic album, or a particularly coherent one. The retro country influence rarely fuses with Hebden’s soporific synths and brain-scouring bursts of distortion: the aforementioned opener kicks off with a drone that wavers in intensity like the circling of a benevolent alien spacecraft, practically drowning out Tyler’s faithful rendition of Lovett’s soothingly lovely guitar work. Then Spider Ballad combines pointillist synths with an insistent bassline, while the dreamlike Loretta Guides My Hands Through the Radio layers studio chatter and instrument tuning.
Tyler’s guitar does return: melded with chimes on Timber, and on closer Secret City, a swirl of ethereal synths and meditative strumming. An attempt to resurrect the good old days and/or boys this is not, but Tyler and Hebden have managed to provide a fresh if slightly disjointed take on formative inspiration.
