Four Tet (Hebden's solo project) instead released the single Thirtysix Twentyfive (1998), an encyclopedic 36-minute vortex of black rhythms, and the album Dialogue (Output, 1999), an experiment in electronic ethnic-jazz fusion (Misnomer, Chiron).

Four Tet's Pause (2000) was a better focused and more accessible manifesto of digital folk music than Four Tet's debut. In Glue Of The World delicate guitar melodies intersect syncopated jazzy beats and background noise. After the intrusion of atonal harp-like sounds, the beat mutates into a swampy texture and the melody reappeares with a music-box quality. Minimalist repetition leads the piece to its illogical conclusion. It sounds like This Heat jamming with Mike Oldfield and being remixed by DJ Shadow. Twenty Three is introduced by a guitar motif as frantic metallic percussion blends with the digital beats. A melancholy trumpet melody soars as the guitar recedes. The Eastern influence surfaces in the koto-like aria of Parks, the most "ambient" piece. Harp variations populate the void of Untangle that is scoured by a metronomic beat.
If the first half of the album is sleepy and subdued, the second half wakes up to the drum'n'bass eloquence and quasi-bluegrass guitar of Everything is Alright. No More Mosquitoes is basically a novelty: a child's singalong against a robotic rhythm, aquatic noises and Eastern-tinged strumming. Hilarious Movie Of The 90's toys with the most memorable carillon of the album, a simply melody that is never quite itself but could obviously be catchy if only Hebden wanted it. The minimalist repetition of a harpsichord-like fugue sets the brisk rhythm of the seven-minute You Could Ruin My Day. When the drums finally kick in, the guitar replaces the harpsichord, so that the second part sounds like a (soulful, bouncy) remix of the first part. In fact, all of these compositions sound like remixes of themselves, or, better, remixes of remixes of remixes of... remixes of themselves. Four Tet introduced the art of the permanent remix.

Four Tet's Rounds (Domino, 2003), a more abstract exercise in layering contrasting patterns over unassuming melodies and disappearing rhythms, runs the gamut from one extreme to the other of the spectrum. Hands is a cubistic recombination of rhythmic and melodic elements to the point that there is no recognizable rhythm or melody, just a very tender chaos; while And They All Looked Broken Hearted is spectral jazz-rock for koto; and the nine-minute Unspoken is a series of variations over a melancholy piano ballad. There is, in general, a more vibrant approach, that peaks with the most ebullient pieces: Spirit Fingers, built around cascading toy-like sounds, and the funky As Serious as Your Life. Only the fractured carillon of She Moves She, the lively lullaby My Angel Rocks Back And Forth, permeated with neoclassical echoes, and Slow Jam, reminiscent of Robert Wyatt's pathos and of John Cale's viola drones in the Velvet Underground, continue the "folktronica" of the previous album.
Four Tet had invented a new form of music, one in which minimalism (a very simple and brief melodic fragment is repeated over and over again...) and soundsculpting (...thus the "song" is in the arrangement not in the melody) are one and the same, while digital beats and textures coexist with emotional, personal and intimate art.

In the meantime Fridge's Eph (Go Beat, 1999 - Temporary Residence, 2002) reflected Four Tet's experiments in a set of evocative melodies.

Fridge's Happiness (Temporary Residence, 2001) mostly employed minimal dynamics for the purpose of creative song-sculpting. Melodica And Trombone challenged the rules of both chamber music and free jazz, flirting with both forms while layering chaotic percussions and organ drones. A simplified version of this idea is offered by Tone Guitar And Drum Noise, in which a melancholy harmonica melody floats over a stormy sea of percussion. Harkening back to Latin-jazz and minimalist repetition, the 13-minute Drum Machine And Glockenspiels achieved another elegant synthesis. The impression that this is music largely crafted by the rhythm section is increased by Drums Bass Sonics And Edits, whose "sonics and edits" seem to play the role of additional percussion. Less enthralling are instead the two guitar shuffles, nine minutes each: Five Four Child Voice and Long Singing. The title of most magic creation goes to the ten-minute closer, Five Combs, that reverses the relative weight of rhythm and arrangement, with the piano and the (sampled) voice driving the piece to its textural climax in a manner that recalls Robert Ashley's operas.

Fridge's Adem Ilhan released the solo Homesongs (Domino, 2004), a collection of humble bedroom folk-songs that reverberate with the lullabies of Donovan and Leonard Cohen, and compete with those of Sufjan Stevens.

Kieran Hebden's fourth Four Tet album, Everything Ecstatic (Domino, 2005) marked a turn away from ecstasy and towards tension, as the sound abandoned its gentler side and opted for a darker and heavier edge. Turbulence pretty much deters every track from acquiring a solid psychology. The clattering A Joy, the exuberant Smile Around the Face, the pastoral Turtle Turtle Up, the seductive And Then Patterns have to fight in order to establish their identity. The music sounds out of control, as if technology finally overran the composer. This is particularly true for the longer tracks. Four Tet basically makes an art out of the unfocused development of pieces such as Sleep Eat Food Have Visions. The standout is probably the cacophonic and deconstruted-jazzy Sun Drums And Soil, a case of the whole is more than the sum of its parts. This is the album of an age in which even the simpler action is wrapped in complex and disturbing thoughts. Perhaps the gentle and simple You Were There With Me that closes the album is meant as a harbinger of better times.

Four Tet's double-CD Everything Ecstatic - Films & Part 2 (Domino, 2006) is a rip-off that contains some awful films, some remixes and some leftovers.

Electronic musician Kieran Hebden and jazz drummer Steve Reid recorded two volumes of Exchange Session (Domino, 2006), a hypnotic serving of extended jams of electronic free-jazz. Tongues (Domino, 2007), instead, opted for a more concise format of ten short duets.

Kieren Hebden, Adem Ihan and Sam Jeffers reformed Fridge to record The Sun (Temporary Residence, 2007), another diligent manual of post-rock lacking moments of real excitement.

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