LIKE watching meerkats at play, Kieran Hebden makes the world a happier place on Everything Ecstatic.

The name of Four Tet's fourth album is suitably positive but a little misleading, because the mood is mellow and long lasting rather than an intense rush of ecstasy, then another.

The words 'Joy', 'Smile', 'Sun', 'High' and 'Up' all appear in the song titles to his lovely and languid laptop instrumentals, each as warm as a womb and comforting as the plump pillow upon which Hebden's dreamscapes are best heard.

Normally, the futuristic alliance of freeform jazz and electronica would be about as welcome as France and Germany's love-in, but Hebden's sense of English whimsy and his surrealist playfulness take you to a space-age pleasurezone. Float on.

Updated: 16:40 Wednesday, June 15, 2005