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Kieran Hebdan & Steve Reid: The Exchange Session Vol. 2Kieran Hebdan & Steve Reid: The Exchange Session Vol. 2 | |
| Desc: | CD REVIEW: ARTIST: Kieran Hebdan and Steve Reid |
| Label: | Domino |
| Format: | Album |
| Media: | CD |
| Genre: | Recording |
This second installment of unfooled-around-with improv between the head Four Tet-er (Kieran Hebden) and the legendary session drummer (Steve Reid) bests the first by hosting the duo’s longer, more cerebral (read: less volatile) electronics-and-skins-and-cymbals journeys. “Hold Down the Rhythms, Hold Down the Machines” embodies its title as Reid’s carpet-bombing kit campaign faces off against Hebden’s rack of imitation-instrument gear, each goading more scintillating, fantastic performances out of one another without flying entirely off the rails. A similar dynamic is at work in “We Dream Free,” a less intense jam in which, after a few minutes of gaining their footing, the players’ threads find each other and jell nicely into a deceptively loose groove.