Four Tet 2023

Video: Still Moving Media
Sound: Parker

The culmination of an 8-year collaboration between the renowned DJ/musician Four Tet and light pioneers Squidsoup, the 2023 tour saw the team play nine nights in LA, New York and London.

Over the years, the project developed from a small conventional live stage-based lighting system to a radical fully immersive experience enveloping both audience and performer, breaking the boundaries between the two, merging artwork and performance, the virtual and the real into a unique augmented experience. With Four Tet at the centre, surrounded by up to 10,000 people each night, the experience is both intimate and intense. Mixmag called it “The Best Live Show in the World”.

The set included a full surround sound system that was mirrored in Squidsoup’s Submergence lighting system – creating volumes of sound and lights that moved around and through the audience, surrounding and enveloping them; a unique experience where the audience are completely immersed in light from all directions.

The 40,000 individually addressable points of light dangle among the audience – starting at waist height and reaching up 5m from the ground. The first lights in the set emerge within the audience, lighting them from below, and then the dynamic lightform emerges above head height, flying around, through, over and under them, resonating and reflecting the music.

Hollywood Palladium, LA: 2, 3, 4 May 2023
Avant Gardner, Brooklyn NYC: 9, 10, 11 May 2023
Ally Pally, London UK: 23, 24, 25 May 2023

The visuals are generated in real time using a system originally developed for an art installation, first shown in Oslo, Norway, called Submergence. That installation was the culmination of many years working on volumetric visual systems – the ability to generate visual forms in three physical dimensions; to create a clear impression of movement and presence in our shared physical space.

The system uses virtual 3D particle emitters to create fireworks, blobs, lines, blocks and waves of light, controllable and movable in real time through physical space.

The collaboration with Four Tet has always been based on serendipity – each collaborator creating their work in real time, without click tracks or pre-rendered visuals. EVERYTHING happened on the fly, creating a unique event each night – one of which has been released by Four Tet as a live album.

Find the live album on Bandcamp HERE and on Spotify HERE

Press coverage:
Review in the Guardian HERE (11 Aug 2023)
Review in the Evening Standard HERE
Review in the Clash HERE

More on previous Four Tet x Squidsoup collaborations HERE and HERE.

Earlier shows:
Alexandra Palace, London, 8-9 May 2019
National Sawdust, Brooklyn NY, 19-23 March 2018
Hollywood Forever, LA, 14-17 March 2018
Village Underground, London, 19-22 February 2018
Roundhouse, London, 13 February 2016
Sydney Opera House, 6 January 2016
ICA, London, 25 August 2015
Manchester International Festival, 17 July 2015

Four Tet stands at the centre of a large crowd, facing away from the camera with both hands raised to his side and palms facing the sky to signal the end of a show. The audience around him raise their hands above their head to clap. Both the audience and Four Tet are illuminated a deep red by the lights of the venue.
An abstract mesh of photographs overlayed on top of each other. Hundreds of LED strands take up the frame, some in focus some not. Audience members are blurred and illuminated light green.
Four Tet is partially visible through hanging strands of LED lights. Audience members stand close together in front of him, illuminated in pink and yellow. A person in the foreground holds their phone above their head to take a photograph.
You are looking at Four Tet as though you are part of the crowd. He is in the distance and you are surrounded by vertically hanging LED strands, illuminated in a geometric pattern in shades of blue, green and pink. The people in front of you are lit up in bright green.
Four Tet stands in the centre of the crowd on a raised platform. He is wearing a blue t-shirt and faces the camera. Most of the audience have their backs to the camera, holding up phone screens to record video. Four Tet and the audience are surrounded by strands glowing in shades of green, which light up the faces of the audience closest to the centre.
Four Tet at Alexandra Palace in 2023. He stands on a raised platform in the centre of an audience, in front of him is an audio mixing desk. Fourtet and the audience are surrounded by hanging strands of LED's glowing in various shades of red, orange, yellow, pink and white.

Credit: Paul Blakemore, Jamie Jar