Four Tet, Ben UFO, Barker, Aurora Halal, Sofia Kourtesis, and Gilles Peterson

Four Tet – aka Kieran Hebden – is probably the DJ I’ve seen live the most times. He’s a fairly ubiquitous figure, seemingly DJing at every single festival, both in the UK and Europe. As a producer, Four Tet is one of the leading artists in UK electronic music, having pushed the boundaries of intelligent dance music with his early forays into folk and jazz-laced electronica. But it’s his take on house, garage and bass music that really changed up the game, ever since his There Is Love in You album dropped in 2010. Hedben has an otherworldly talent for incorporating accessible melody into an otherwise authentic dance song, and his downtempo productions are often layered with pretty sound effects and samples.
His DJ sets are impossible to predict since he is such a versatile selector and moulds each set to his surroundings, but they are always thoroughly enjoyable. I’ve seen techno heavy sets, such as at Plastic People in London where he dropped his Burial collaboration ‘Moth’, as well as jungle and house sets at certain festivals like Field Day. I personally think Four Tet is at his best when he pulls from all shades of his palette during one set, such as at Worldwide in France where he effortlessly mixed his own heady productions with latin jazz, soul and contemporary techno music. Lovely.

I'll try to be brief. Awful gig. Venue was not the best. Bad choice of music. Trainwrecks were aplenty. Waste of money. Definitely won't be coming these gigs again. What happened?

Jazz is Gilles Peterson’s bread and butter. He literally lives, breathes and sweats jazz, and has done for years. The size of Gilles’s discography is absurd and serves as a timeline for the evolution of Gilles’s sound. Gilles’s DJ career has spanned various radio stations – both legal and pirate – and has taken him to venues across the globe, allowing him to bring his unique genre of acid jazz to the masses. Gilles’s DJ sets are effervescent. He peppers his jazz-heavy music with sprinklings of funk and Latin beats, creating a sound that is equal parts energizing and chilled out. It’s a genre that you’d be just as happy moving to on a night out, as you would sitting down to listen to during a chilled evening in. It’s a hard balance to strike, but Gilles does it every time. It’s his forte.
Watching Gilles DJ live feels a bit voyeuristic. It’s clear that crafting these musical fusions is something very personal. His music really is a part of him and he’s totally in love with it. It’s very cool to see Gilles become one with his music, and I’ve rarely seen other DJs as in the moment as Gilles is. For this reason alone it’s worth seeing him live. Catching one of his tour dates is a must, I guarantee you’ll have a phenomenal night.