One was that I was to abandon the overt usage of melody. There were also other principles at play at this time relating to harmonic content. I just wanted to get really fucking loose and just start again somehow. The sequencer is too square, too digital. One of the reasons that I headed in that direction as opposed to the more computer sequence-type stuff is because I was actually beginning to feel really limited using sequencers and samplers.I was really beginning to yearn for the sort of unpredictability of the randomness of improvising with live instruments. Many of the tracks instead have a 'live' feel, featuring virtuoso playing by Squarepusher on the drums and bass guitar. The album production did not involve any sequencing or sampling equipment, which had featured heavily on Squarepusher's previous work. He has been careful to ensure he continues to challenge and alienate, but one can't help be thankful that he has started to find his human heart.Music Is Rotted One Note is the third full-length album released by Squarepusher, on UK electronica label Warp.įollowing the abrasive sounds of Hard Normal Daddy and the drum and bass feel of the Big Loada EP, Music Is Rotted One Note has a far more relaxed, abstract sound, owing much to both jazz and electroacoustic music. It's these kind of tracks make this the most accessible Squarepusher record to date. "I Fulcrum", "Andrei", "Tommib Help Buss" (which reprises "Tommib", the ambient cut from the last LP that was featured in Lost in Translation), are less calls to riot, more polite quests to come stroll through England's verdant valleys. What is perhaps more surprising overall are the attempts to link his avant-gardism to something more melodic, more traditional, more humane. "Menelec", "Distinct Line II" and "C-Town Smash" are uncompromising efforts to make diodes scream, to tear apart the digital innerspace of his studio and infuse it with psychologically effecting elements like anomie, paranoia and adrenalin. The defragmented vocals, screaming diodes and distressed digital space on "50 Cycles" leads - eventually - to a 'real' hip hop track, with discernible rhymes and a tangible funk element.Įlsewhere, he doesn't give us any breaks at all. These indulgences humanise what can be at times an emaciated album, starved of oxygen, devoid of soul, albeit always rich in detail and sound. The many references to jazz - be it fusion-era explorations or scattershot free-jazz explosions - recall Jenkinson's impressive adventures on Music Is Rotted One Note. Yet we get a sense, early on, that the balance of the album is more considered, more mature than previous work. It is impossible to know what to expect not just from one track to the next, but sometimes from one bar to the next. The difference between this and former work is that rather than the melodic element of the song being relegated to the background it stays with us, soaring high and strong above the rhythmic collapse that underpins it, pulling us clear of the mayhem and destruction below.įrom here, Jenkinson takes us on a predictably unpredictable journey that challenges, thrills, delights and grates in equal amounts. The pulses, tinkles and blips that start us off are gentle enough for the first few seconds but melt down into clangorous terror-core territory fairly swiftly. The opening title track is a case in point. Frenetic rhythmic shifts and a sense of apocalyptic entropy are still very much a part of Ultravisitor's ever-morphing scape, but they are often tempered (occasionally exacerbated) by other elements such as Jenkinson's love of jazz and some - hold your breath - some gentle acoustica. The album is in many ways a move on from the by now stale-sounding drill & bass experimentation of previous outings. This new rapport with his audience is reflected within the album, most notably on "Circlewave" and "Tetra-Sync", which feature piped live applause on one of the tracks he even allows himself a 'hello' to the audience. Now, the man who once asked Do You Know Squarepusher? is voluntarily giving us some insight into who he really might be. Previous 'pusher albums have been decorated with geometric patterns and abstract shapes, highlighting the anonymous aspect of the bedroom auteur who works in the shadows and lets us know him only through the music.
The image is more significant than it may at first look. He looks like he has spent the last few weeks in an underground basement, working through the night, eschewing sleep so can add more detail and lustre to his new opus. Tom Jenkinson stares at us somewhat balefully from the cover of his new LP, Ultravisitor.
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