Squarepusher - Hello Everything (Warp)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
I laughed when a more clued-up about these matters than myself friend told me that Squarepusher's last album 'Ultravisitor' was 'cheesy'. I couldn't believe that the 'pusher had it in him. Cheese. But he does. Here, the opening 'Hello Meow' is so cheesy that it could play an integral part in a Wallace & Gromit script. It also sounds remarkably like the work of Squarepusher's pioneering younger brother Ceephax - except, bizarrely, of not as high a quality. Now, what has the world come to when Squarepusher's straining to catch up with the work of his kid brother?
That said, he remains in a field of his own when it comes to some things. Like? Well, he's the greatest f**king bass player in the whole wide world - just listen to and marvel at this sh*t (apologies for all the swear*ng)... and this is on the most blatantly electro track on the whole record. Cheesey synth chord progressions and ludicrously talented slap bass so far, then... what next, though? Lounge jazz?!
Gasp... yep - the ludicrously titled 'Theme From Sprite' stinks of the stuff. But the playing on it is superb (you'll have gathered already that this is far from merely an electronica album), and this is 'Hello Everything', after all. No genre should be sneered at, which is an admirable attitude. This track however comes very close to being elevator music, but at least if you were in such a lift, you'd be going up to some pretty sexy office.
The remarkable bass playing returns on 'Bubble Life', backed with some vicious glitching beats which are lovely too. It's clear that more so than ever before, Tom's being incredibly sophisticated in terms of instrumentation. I could get totally lost in this if I'm not careful. In fact, I think I am. Forgive me if the review tails off, but I'm dancing inside now, especially when 'Planetarium' crops up and finally some real dirty, filthy beats arrive. He'll probably kill the mood in a minute, the bastard.
Oh whaddayaknow, 'Vacuum Garden' just sounds like my ears caving in on themselves. It's a slow, drawn out noise that lasts for seven minutes, like a segment of the sound of someone reversing a commercial jet if it were dragged out over an hour and reversed, whilst somehow becoming bruised in the process. It's funny. I'm glad he's done it. But, heck, it just doesn't work - it kills this record just as you were getting in to it. After a few minutes you'll either stop listening, or become engrossed. For me, the latter happens, but I know it's only going to be a matter of time before he brings the busy stuff back in, and then I'll have to readjust myself all over again.
It doesn't happen quite that starkly. It comes out of the mire brilliantly in to 'Circlewave 2' (was there ever a 'Circlewave 1'?), that drone continuing as some free jazz drumming and beautifully delicate nylon string tickling goes on over the top. Maybe 'Vacuum Garden' should have been the start of the record. Maybe we should have gone on to this with that as an introduction (as if anyone could be bothered to start that way). Maybe the first four tracks would have made a great stand along EP. Maybe that's where he's been and the rest of the album is where he's going. I'm confused. He sounds as if he is too, but he's revelling in it whereas I'm stroking my hairless chin. 'Cronecker King' continues in a similar manner, and by now it's glorious, if completely unfathomable. It's very short, perhaps mercifully so. Time to move on.
'Rotate Electrotype', then, and some rewarding drum and bass action, glitchy electro bass lines ruining my theory that this second half of the record was going to showcase where Tom Jenkinson was about to go with his Squarepusher project. Saying 'Hello Everything' it seems includes saying hello to the past. He's done things like this before, but the melody on it however toward the end is rather comely. It's long, takes ages to build and I was silly to write it off as overly familiar at such an early stage. The barmy chord progression alone is reason enough for the song's existence.
How exactly do these 'electronica' people write melody, anyway? At what point does it come in the songwriting process? This has always baffled me, and because, like every other electronica artist, Squarepusher (when he writes them at all) pens such strange melodies that I'm no closer to figuring out the answer to my question. They come at songwriting and all forms of composition from such a weird angle.
From 'Rotate...' onwards, It sticks wit' da beats, even going a little trancey on 'Welcome To Europe' (although I don't claim to know what trance means because I don't do drugs, and anyone who does do drugs and claims to know what trance means doesn't know because they take too many sodding drugs). By now, we're on 'Plotinus', and the jazz drumming here takes centre stage. It's relaxing, yes, but don't call it background music - it's complicated as hell and designed to be celebrated rather than to fade in to the background whilst you ask your plain wife how her day at work was, honey.
He's a pretty mighty nylon string player too, that much he's proved. But I'm still puzzled. Am I meant to be marvelling at the skill of everything or just enjoying the record for the songs it contains? I mean, I know Steve Vai can play, it's just that the stuff he insists on playing is complete cack. In honesty, I do enjoy this more. There's piercing noise to this that Vai would poo himself if he ever heard.
'Orient Orange', a title which sounds like something from a Lee and Herring sketch, itself sounds like something that Stewart Lee would revel in - a load of eerie crashes and creepy creaking noises. 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.
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