Photo credit: Gracia Villamil
Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) today announced the signing of acclaimed British composer and producer Kieran Hebden, the mastermind behind pioneering electronic act Four Tet, and founder of the Text Records label, to an exclusive, global publishing agreement.
Kieran Hebden aka Four Tet has been dubbed the definitive indie electronic artist – an innovative composer with an internationally successful career spanning over 20 years and 11 studio albums. He is regularly cited as a major influence on artists, songwriters and producers within electronic music and beyond.
Four Tet’s sound pulls influence from everything from spiritual jazz to Krautrock, via folk music and hip-hop. The eclectic nature of his music has resulted in classic albums like New Energy, There Is Love In You, Rounds and Sixteen Oceans and collaborations with artists ranging from jazz drummer Steve Reid, cult-electronic producer Burial to prolific hip hop producer and MC Madlib, as well as remixes of songs by the likes of Rihanna, Tame Impala, Headie One, The XX, Bicep, Eric Prydz, Radiohead, Aphex Twin, and Madvillain.
Maintaining a healthy balance of being uncompromisingly experimental and commercially successful, Four Tet’s catalogue includes a number of club and festival hits, including the Nelly Furtado-sampling ‘Only Human’. In 2008, Hebden collaborated with David Arnold on ‘Crawl, End Crawl,’ the instrumental closing theme to the cinematic blockbuster ‘Quantum of Solace’, the 22nd instalment of the James Bond series. Kieran tours his live and DJ sets across the globe and notably sold out 2 nights at the legendary Alexandra Palace in London in 2019.
Pete Simmons, Director A&R UMPG said “Four Tet has soundtracked my life from GCSE revision to dancefloors at university and now I get the pleasure to work with him. I’m honoured to represent a catalogue that means so much to not just me but the whole of UMPG. Looking forward to working with Kieran, Carol and the wider Solar team. Special thanks to Amy Samson for making the initial introduction.”