Before last night, I had never really listened to Squarepusher. I’d sampled some songs on Youtube and read a little bit about his longevity, but mostly all I had to go on was the word of many artists who admire Aphex Twin and this guy…
And soon this was accompanied by the most insane blend of live instrumentation, sequencing and glitch beats via drum & bass, experimental, acid jazz and music that makes my genre-specific way-of-mind hurt just a little bit.
It was dark and heavy and crazy and different, as Squarepusher administered a 2 hour tripster emporium. He was greeted by die-hard fans screaming “Yeah Tom! Go Tom!” (his real name is Tom Jenkinson). It looked like this:
After an hours worth of what looked like a regular DJ set (although from my birdseye view at the begginning of the show, I could tell this was no 2CDJs/Mixer set up) Jenkinson picked up the 5-string bass guitar to quite the roar from the crowd. It was then that I was completely intrigued by what was going up there.
Turns out many of Squarepusher’s tracks are performed by live instruments and digital signal processing. He was playing the craziest drum beats and glitchy noises with his bass. Things I didn’t even really know were possible.
I’ve been digging through tracks and albums all day, discovering these tracks – some of them 15-20 years old – that can stand the test of time in a day where most music is made to sound “electronic.” And your favorite DJs were right, Squarepusher is the truth.