like many on this list, i've been watching with some interest the growing
infatuation with yer Squarepusher, noting with fascination and not a little
anticipation the use of descriptors like "Mr. Future Of Music" and cute
little sigs like "octahedral puller," etc. stumbling across his "feed me
weird things" at the record store today, i was thus delighted to finally
have opportunity to experience for myself the growing phenomenon that this
individual is rapidly becoming...i will say i had chance to hear the
rephlex 12-inch that preceded this long-player some weeks back, and, i must
admit, was not all that impressed. some good ideas, i thought (particularly
the live soloing and his mutation of jazz and blues-based music phrasing in
the context of drum'n'bass), but for the most part flooded with business,
flat delivery, hurried production, and a general lack of dynamics...rome, i
reminded myself humbly, was not built in a day, and i allowed the fellow a
hollow introduction with the agreement to listen closely to his full-length
upon its release and decide then as to his value...
...so, i did. and i must say my mind hasn't changed. granted, i listened
somewhat quickly, on headphones, in the record store, giving only a minute
to a minute-and-a-half to each track (although i listened to "theme" in its
entirety)...my criticisms will be brief: although not untalented (indeed,
it could be argued that Mr. Pusher is one of few junglists attempting to
extract drum'n'bass from the conceptual rut its been lying in for some
months now), Squarepusher's "feed me weird things" seemed to me to be
something of the drum'n'bass equivelent of the worst of late-era hard-bop
or (yikes!) early '70s jazz-rock fusion. like middle period jazz messengers
or the latter incarnations of the mahavishnu orchestra, Squarepusher
assembles a euphoric, dizzying array of technique and stylistic facility
before the listener, and one which is, at least where these ears are
concerned, entirely devoid of emotional content and compositional dynamics.
now, i don't mean to say i don't like the album 'cuz it's not Serious and
Involved and other things like that--i've got as much zappa as berio in my
collection. but, as in the case of the ep, the music seems to be operating
from the principle that, if fucked-up sounds good ev'ry coupla bars,
why...it'll sound even better for eight bars solid, or indeed, all the way
through! but after the upteenth flanged high-hat sixteenth note is arranged
and the fourth or fifth layer of reverse time-stretched drum shot applied,
i'm left with the criticism of grotus' first album vocalist lars fox
offered me when i asked him what he thought of it: "it's all highs and no
lows. which means its effectively no highs at all."
...i bought "hidden camera" instead.
sc
onnow: the melvins : stag (atlantic; now _this_ i like...)