Authenticity and "The Real": Four Tet's Remixes and Mash-ups

 The post-rock genre's emphasis on instrumentation has become the subject of various remixes and mashups. The electronic artist Kieran Hebden's project Four Tet ranks among the most notable post-rock re-inventors. Hebden himself belonged to an English post-rock band called Fridge up until his full conversion to the electronic world as Four Tet in 1999. The results have been incredible. Four Tet's remixes of Explosions In The Sky and Godspeed You! Black Emperor blend electronic, post-dubstep, and post-rock genre boundaries, delving in a seamless alchemy between "the popular" and "alternative."

As a listener of post-rock music, I have found myself averting my eyes from bands that sound "too plastic," as if digital and electronically produced music was somehow less "real." This may be a suitable moment to consider Jean Baudrillard's "Simulacra and Simulation". What makes music authentic? Is the post-rock genre grounded in the subtle disposition that it must be directly performed from finger to string in order for it to be considered categorically valuable? If we are to discount the "imitation" of the real, then we must unhinge the fundamental underpinnings of minimalist music. The repetition inherent in minimalism functions as a synthetic work built from the layered and interconnected simulacra of musical phrases. The work is woven by minute relationships, each recurrent pulse abstracted from its original source.

Four Tet's remix of Explosions In The Sky's "Catastrophe and the Cure" introduces more electronic elements into the post-rock recipe, while still placing the characteristic emphasis on voiceless instrumentation.

 On a different musical note, Four Tet's mash-up of Godspeed You! Black Emperor's "Sleep" with Nas' "It Ain't Hard To Tell" breaks the "unspoken rules" of the post-rock genre. Godspeed is given a voice it has so long been missing. Four Tet's mash-up not only unifies two definitive musical acts from their respective genres, but essentially mixes both wines of the post-rock and rap holy grails. "Lift Your Skinny Fists..." and "Illmatic" are widely considered the pinnacles of their musical spheres and Four Tet's acute artistic choices hybridize two unlike genres with mutual respect.