Squarepusher - Just A Souvenir (Warp)
5/5
By: Dickon Stone
By the time someone releases their 11th album you get the impression you might have had enough. I haven't. Let's not beat around the bush (really, let's not) - Just A Souvenir is a modern classic; a journey through what Tom Jenkinson describes as his attempt to recreate a daydream he had about an ultra gig. Yes!
Upon hearing this concept I myself daydreamed over what I imagined to be an ultra gig. And let me tell you, it was frickin' awesome. But it wasn't as downright delightful as this album.
Proceedings open with 'Startime 2', an organ epic full of all the swing and jazz you would expect. Kick drums that could knock the wind out of you, old skool funk vibes at every turn, like casino lounge backing tracks on speed. The boy's using a combination of real drum recording and some serious sampling. Throw into the mix relentless rubadubdub bass that we know, love, respect, enjoy, relish... it's just all very yummy.
'Coathanger' follows with more flange that a pre-labioplasty pornstar. Slap bass, clacks, uber processed vox set against clean sounds which actually aren't clean, they just seem clean and pure because of the beautiful job of production that has gone on. Even at this early stage, Just a Souvenir is already a riddle, disjointed and cut but in such a precise and pristine way. How odd.
'Open Society' is classical acoustic guitar. But not. It seems to have been reversed here and there, with touching harmonics and vibrato throughout... haunting resonance, short trills... so elegantly composed. 'A Real Woman' offers us more flange-y, weird vocals, like some kind of The Jam meets Phish meets Stardust. I even half expected a chant of "Hey Ho, Lets Go!"
Elsewhere in the first half, 'Delta-V' is chock a block with snare fills, distortion, feedback, thrashing guitars like a shark that's bitten a hook, cymbal smashings, big riffs, like some kind of Jungle vs. Prog Rock expo. This maelstrom of sound is a mishmash genius; the complexity of breakdowns and instrumentalism is commendable. Jazz fusion meets a raging bull. Imagine Weather Report having a quick go on QOTSA's equipment.
Like an audio collage, if Just a Souvenir was to be visualised I expect it would be a Jackson Pollock masterpiece. Maybe it's more like if Venetian Snares had found a major chord and box of pastel coloured crayons and just thought... 'yeah'. It's totally all over the place - 'Tensor in Green' for example waiiiiilllls like a baby on an expensive Fender. This could feasibly be a 'Black Sabbath' riff - it's as if 'Iron Man' has had a bath in WD40, downed a reservoir of rocket fuel and learned to moonwalk before sprouting arms and doing an impression of Aphex Twin's 'Monkey Drummer'. But then we get 'The Glass Road', initially the slap bass equivalent of the organ madness on 'Cradle of Filth's 'Kthulu Dawn'. But then it gets gentle. Like the greatest selection of 70's blues/funk/jazz/rock thrown together in a tumble dryer and left to mould into one single solid globule. Then put on a plate with the silver gravy of 2000BPM Breakcore drums. My eyes water. Something in the chaos makes me want to close my eyes.
It's delicious, a wonderful creation, a conversation between guitar and noise, it's casino jazz, it's belly ache bass from way down low, it's a spatial conquest. In exchange for our souvenir, someone give this man a medal.
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