If you look at the list of Kieran Hebden’s collaborators and remixers, it is almost impossible to find a common thread holding them all together: Aphex Twin, Radiohead, Jay Dee, Bonobo, Koushik; some might say it’s the sign of an artist with a constant hunger to develop whilst others would point to Hebden’s reluctance to be ushered gently into media created pigeonholes labelled with such terms as ‘folktronica’.

‘Everything Ecstatic’, the latest long player was recorded in two months flat and sees the man behind Four Tet in prime form. He is constantly wrong footing the listener with intelligent transitions from raw, toppling percussion to barely audible white noise (on opener ‘A Joy’), then inviting you into judiciously placed quieter moments (‘You Were There With Me’). Powering through this album, and impossible to ignore, are the ferociously dirty and agile drums. These drums are more than ever are at the centre of Hebden’s tracks. This is possibly a result of recent collaborations with legendary drummer Steve Reid (whose CV speaks for itself - Sun Ra, Fela Kuti and James Brown) or equally likely, the result of constant experimentation with the plethora of percussive equipment lying round Four Tet HQ. Either way, the evidence is conclusive on such tracks as ‘Sun Drums And Soil’ and ‘Unspoken’ where the drums fire through with enough force to scare even the most hardcore of ravers.

Even at its most horizontal moments, ‘Everything Ecstatic’ is restless rather than restful and where past recordings have taken little persuasion to crawl into the soul, this is a more stubborn little beauty. Rugged round the edges and occasionally veering off into the free jazz world of Alice Coltrane and co, this is a rewarding if not deeply challenging album from one of the UK’s most exciting leftfield producers.