Four Tet

When critics filed Rounds under folk revivalism, Hebden pointed instead to a Miami hit factory. "Rodney Jerkins actually was the most influential for me," he told Rolling Stone, singling out the producer's work on Brandy and Monica's "The Boy Is Mine" — a song "led by a harp" pinned to "very crisp electronic rhythms." He ranked Jerkins alongside Aphex Twin as electronic music's cutting edge, and told Pitchfork, unprompted, that the R&B hitmaker — not the folk revivalists — was the biggest influence on the album everyone else was busy mislabeling.

listen: upstream & heresource: Rolling Stone — "Four Tet Looks Back on 'Rounds'" (Simon Vozick-Levinson, 2013; Rodney Jerkins and Jim O'Rourke quotes) ↗share

1998

The Boy Is MineRodney Jerkins

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2003

My Angel Rocks Back and ForthFour Tet

listen forJerkins built "The Boy Is Mine" around a harp-like glissando pinned to a tight, syncopated drum program — melody and rhythm sharing one clipped, percussive texture. "My Angel Rocks Back and Forth" runs a version of the same trick through samples: a plucked, harp-adjacent hook loops against a beat that never quite lands where a straight backbeat would. Listen for how both tracks let a melodic pluck double as a rhythm instrument — the exact combination Hebden cited when he named Jerkins, the producer behind the Brandy and Monica record, as his biggest influence on Rounds.

By the time he made Everything Ecstatic, Hebden had one record in mind. "In 2001... Jim O'Rourke put out I'm Happy and I'm Singing and a 1, 2, 3, 4. That was a pivotal record for me," he told Pitchfork — a Fahey-schooled guitarist turned laptop improviser. "The idea of live electronic improvisation of free jazz gave me all the direction for where I was going to go next," he said, crediting that one album with pushing him off Rounds' sample-collage method and toward playing electronics live, in real time, on record.

listen: upstream & heresource: Rolling Stone — "Four Tet Looks Back on 'Rounds'" (Simon Vozick-Levinson, 2013; Rodney Jerkins and Jim O'Rourke quotes) ↗share

2001

I'm HappyJim O'Rourke

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2005

A JoyFour Tet

listen forO'Rourke's "I'm Happy" unspools like a single live take — a guitarist's ear turned loose on a laptop, tones bending and glitching in real time rather than locking into a fixed loop. "A Joy" chases that same live-wire feeling: samples and rhythms get pushed and pulled mid-track instead of sitting in Rounds' tighter collage, the audible shift Hebden pointed to when he said O'Rourke's record redirected him toward improvisation.

Pressed again on the "folktronica" tag, Hebden didn't reach for another electronic touchstone — he reached for Blue. "I was listening to Joni Mitchell and trying to make a record like Blue," he told Pitchfork. "And no one really seemed to understand my influences at all, which was frustrating." It reads as a correction more than a confession: naming Mitchell was Hebden's way of telling writers they'd built a folk-scene narrative around an album that was actually chasing something closer to her plain, unguarded songwriting.

listen: upstream & heresource: Stereogum — "Rounds Turns 20" (Ted Davis, 2023; corroborates the Joni Mitchell/Blue claim) ↗share

1971

RiverJoni Mitchell

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2003

Slow JamFour Tet

listen forMitchell's "River" rests on almost nothing but her own piano and voice — one performer's plain, unhurried outline. "Slow Jam" is the one Rounds track built the same way: Hebden picks up an actual guitar rather than sampling one, playing it solo and unhurried under the track's few other elements. Listen for how both strip down to a single instrument carrying the emotional weight, the plainspoken intimacy Hebden said he was chasing when he named Blue over any folktronica touchstone.