While partaking in some correspondance with Irene, my mention of the new
Squarepusher LP kind of turned a review, so I thought I'd post it here
for the person who asked after one. Feel free to agree/disagree with me
at your leisure, bearing in mind that it's stream of conciousness
babbling and not trying to be informative/succinct/good like some other
peoples (Lance! You are appreciated!). Enough! Here's the review:
"Got the new Squarepusher LP on Friday. Looks like he's been on the acid
again. If you thought his other LPs were kind of scatty then watch out,
this is completely all over the place (the NME called it the most
structured thing he's done, which doesn't fit at all with what I'm
hearing but probably serves to show how different this LP will sound to
different people). The style is similar throughout, but the tracks are
fairly formless. It feels more lo-fi than most lo-fi bands (the
instruments sound haphazardly miked up in a basement somewhere and the
feel is raw and reminiscent of those old 30s-40s jazz recordings made on
cylinders). Half the tracks are (on first listen) kind of semi-realised
sonic scrapings. The rest sound a bit like Tortoise after someone spiked
their drinks and contain at least some of the following: doomy hi-speed
jazz drumming, the obligatory live bass, bits where the drums reverse or
have some FX things put on them, people mumbling inaudiably in the
background. On the whole not the smooth live jazz sound that I was
expecting from what people had said beforehand, so people who thought
his previous LPs were underproduced had better steer clear. Overally it
has a tendancy to be a bit prog and up it's own arse (even more so that
usual!!). Having said that to me it's pretty unique and one of those
that will take a bit of growing into. So despite it being a "difficult"
album I reckon I'll be listening to it quite a lot to see what reveals
itself. And it makes suprisingly good background music, so far. In
summary, it's not a *totally* unlistenable racket!"
So there we go. Incidentally, does anyone else find it really annoying
that it's called "Music Is Rotted One Note" rather than "Music is One
Rotted Note"?
Also, one question while I'm here - who is behind the "Clifford Gilberto
Rhythm Combination" stuff on Ninja Tune? When I got the 12" (Deliver The
Weird) it sounded exactly like Squarepusher on some tracks and Amon
Tobin on others (hence the "Rhythm Combination?", but after hearing the
LP I'm not so sure. Apologies if someone mentioned this before, but I've
been off list for a while...
Graham.
PS To the guy who I met at the Rephlex/Mike Dred/DMX night at the
Faversham pub in Leeds on Thursday, get in touch to discuss the finer
points of the evening (Skam in Record Collector magazine - whatever
next?!) or just to argue about who's going to review the whole thing for
the benefit of IDM. Not me, not me!