New Music Friday: Stream new projects from Four Tet, Heavee, Devon Welsh, and more

Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden has always been incredible at creating dreamy soundscapes so impossibly sensory and tactile, they sometimes feel like they could actually be habitable. They’re captivating and lifelike in their movements and textures, remarkable in their ability to trigger memories of soft spring meadows or the lazy summer breeze, even within the darkest corners of a club. Needless to say, it’s a relief to see Hebden finally end his brief stint in mainstream EDM with something as mesmerizingly biotic as his twelfth studio album, Three. A magnificent return to form, the record is a lush, downtempo effort that brings back the stately softness he’s so good at drawing out with his heavy sampling of organic instrumentation. And with tracks like “Loved,” “Daydream Repeat,” and the standout gem that is “Three Drums,” Three is as transformative as it is transportive; the sound of two decades spent blurring the lines between sequencers and the human soul to remarkable success. — Sandra Song

Hear it: Apple Music | Spotify

Heavee has a similar relationship with footwork as Jlin, another producer tied more to progressing their sound rather than any one genre. Both the dance music of Chicago brought to the world by DJ Rashad and Heavee’s desire to experiment are equally foundational to how he creates. He describes himself a “Jam Session Specialist” in his Bandcamp bio, and it’s easy to see why: Unleash, the Chicago producer’s new album for Hyperdub, feels like a sentient relay tower that’s forming new transmissions from the sounds it receives. Taking the restless spirit of footwork dancing as its own, Unleash is irrepressible yet highly choreographed and full of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it details. There's the palpitation-worthy ambient techno (album opener “StarSeeker”), the angular and deconstructed shards of TNGHT on “Whiplash”, and the Satie-esque ambiance of “Heart Fragments.” Such refreshing and consistent left turns keep the moments when Heavee returns to footwork — like “WorkMe,” “Unleash,” and the beautifully jazzy closer "Smoke Break" — feel like cinematic homecomings. — Jordan Darville

Hear it: Apple Music | Spotify | Bandcamp

On his latest solo album, Come With Me If You Want to Live, former Majical Cloudz frontman Welsh takes the idea of life being a movie and runs with it. The fantastical project centers Welsh as a Bruce Willis-style all-action hero — the kind of guy who saves babies from burning buildings and foils a bank robbery with no back-up. Listening to the tightly produced synth-pop songs Welsh lends his voice to leave you feeling both stranded and uplifted in equal measure. There is a carpe diem spirit to the album that undercuts the pensive words that compose songs like "That’s What We Needed" or "Heaven Deserves You," the latter lamenting how time decays all. Elsewhere, like on "Twenty Seven," Welsh writes earnestly from the fresh perspective a new calendar year can bring. The pop melodicism present throughout makes the interpolation of Motown hit "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted" on "You Can Do Anything" a natural fit, making its fist-pumping mantra soar. That track, an uplifting drum n' bass-adjacent tune, feels like the calling card for a truly unique creative venture. — David Renshaw

Hear it: Apple Music | Spotify | Bandcamp