Squarepusher
Tom Jenkinson can boast a 10 year career, and one that has seen him acquire an intense core of followers. Jenkinson is primarily a bassist, but with musical beginnings as a drummer. Evident in his percussive slap/ finger picking style, much of his work finds his two mistresses, drums and bass, at loggerheads, both vying for his full attention. Since the days of putting on nights at his local football club in Chelmsford, which had him playing live bass over old funk breaks, acid jazz and tv themes, Jenkinson has been on a mighty journey through which he has become, arguably, the singularly most forward thinking exponent of drum and bass.
His mid-90\'s singles showcased his bass technique; however, 1997\'s \'Hard Normal Daddy\' was the record that marked his take off into truly unchartered sonic space. It sees \'Drill And Bass\' rising from the union of drum sequences, sweeping keyboard themes, jazzy melodic synths and perhaps the most fluid bass playing ever to find its way onto vinyl. Bass dexterity of such blistering virtuosity, teamed with a seemingly insatiable hunger to progress, saw him smashing musical barriers all over the place. Soon after, he was creating swirling landscapes, and had developed a unique, distinctive, full sound. He has since indulged his passion for jazz colossus\' John Coltrane and Miles Davis, and his music has shape-shifted across sounds, genres, and sometimes, it seems, through time and indeed space. It is certainly something of a headf**k at times, but one that has earned its license to f**k heads.
He has no interest, however, in purely \'wigging out\'. \'Widdling\', he sees as completely detrimental to the artist/listener relationship. He is also consistently self critical and despite his mind bending virtuosity, remains someone who sees the absurdity and contradictions in what he does. Jenkinson reckons: "The only tenable approach for me is to make work that is a contradiction, work that critiques itself and the relationship it has to the listener. It makes for uneasy terrain, always verging on nonsense, but anything else would be true stupidity."
The Neptunes nominated his album Do You Know Squarepusher for the shortlist prize in 2002, Chris Cunningham has been working on a film based around his music and his celebrity fans come from wide and far to proclaim his sheer brilliance. Andre 300, Tom Yorke and Bootsy Collins have all praised his innovative approach and Flea from Chilli Peppers has described him as "The best bass player on earth." And this is a guy who still regularly plays at open mic nights down his local boozer.
SQUAREPUSHER.NET: Get your news as it happens from the Squarepusher’s mouth, with an excellent interview database another of the features on this handsome official site.
MYSPACE.COM/DOYOUKNOWSQUAREPUSHER: A little difficult to navigate, but the cuts from new LP Just A Souvenir are sure worth it when you finally get to the media player.
SQUAREPUSHER @ WARP: The partnership of Squarepusher and Warp Records makes total sense, and the label’s website reward his consistently high quality and volume of output with the most comprehensive Squarepusher news feed anywhere online.
ULTRAVISITOR: “Long may Jenkinson not so much as Push, but completely demolish and corrode convention beyond all feasible recognition…” – Toby L
LIVE @ READING 2003: “Squarepusher is capable of dishing out marvellously enjoyable ear-torture and still coming across like a nice guy without saying a thing. Perhaps there is a hidden-message amongst all that deafening fuzz after all…” – Tom Hannan
LIVE IN LONDON 2006: “A mish-mash of flailing arms getting hyped up by the abstract beats, ablazed by ricochets of white flashes…” – Yousif Nur
HELLO EVERYTHING: “Whether it’s music is up for debate, but I’m inclined to think that Squarepusher is beyond music now. I’ve thought about this album more than I have any other I’ve heard all year, and I’ve thought different things about it every time its circular form and my ears have met. It’ll continue to happen. And despite being baffled by most, if not all, of it, it’s for this reason that I’m totally certain that it’s very, very good…” – Tom Hannan
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