Do You Know Squarepusher

The guy who reviewed this album at Pitchforkmedia is so so very wrong, I'm sorry, that's just my opinion, but I have to admit it -- Squarepusher is miles ahead of the pack. Nothing, really, to my ear, rivals the playfulness, complexity, and vitality of Jenkinson's work. So: reviewers (me included) begone! Ultimately, Jenkinson has to make Squarepusher for himself, and if what he's done satisfies him, then he's succeeded on the most important level. The challenges or qualities of the album will inevitably find its listeners, and if the album proves itself to be amazing, then many people will listen to the album. ... My own opinion on this record is that it is short. Perfectly short. I wouldn't want it to be longer. Last year's Go Plastic will probably be seen as one of the greatest electronic albums of all time -- it is incredibly dense, complicated, hilarious, and fully energetic, it is beyond the scope of so many artists working today that it boggles the mind, a work of pure imaginative genius -- and so I didn't want Squarepusher to release another full album too soon. I still want to savor Go Plastic. In a sense Do you Know is not actually an album, but a selection of musical foods that Jenkinson has eaten. This is a bolus of various styles, digested and turned into Squarepusher lumps. The effect is an examination of the various influences Jenkinson has seen on his music. It's like a cover record (and as a clue to that goal, ends with a very real cover of a Joy Division song). From Dj Scud to Stockhausen to Joy Division, here are Squarepusher's influences given the intense scissor cut attack he has perfected. It is a wonderful mini-album to accompany the grand overture that was Go Plastic, and shares many of its superior qualities. The wonderful thing about Jenkinson is that he never looks back, but continues to learn from his own glitches and audio graffs. Ironically, the second disc is a live album recorded last year, and it is cool, but maybe not as cool as actually seeing him, but a good taster of what it would have been like to see him that year. The name, Alive in Japan, is a bit of a joke, because Jenkinson suddenly disappeared from his N American tour with Plaid in 2001 and no one seemed to know exactly what happened. He was supposed to play a whole bunch of shows, but he was nowhere to be found. People thought he was sick, or dead, or just a jerk. Apparently, he went to Japan and kicked it there instead. Oh well.

Squarepusher is the best artist in music today. He represents technology and anyone that gets off on that will fall in love. The first track is from the single "untitled" and is worth the money alone. The second CD is worth it too. Squarepusher is a very good live performer and actually improvises. The echo and the crowd just make it that much cooler.

Love squarepusher

This album seems to be decidedly unreviewed on Amazon.com (Amazon.co.uk, by the way, has many more user reviews of this particular album). While I really don't want to criticize any reviewing style, "Do You Know Squarepusher" seems not to be have yet been extensively reviewed here for it's actual content. I hope this review will do just that. The first CD has the new stuff. The two tracks that possibly make this album worth it are "Do You Know Squarepusher" (the title track) and "Anstromm-Feck 4". The title track is a pristine and masterful drill n bass piece, sporting superb mixing of its drums, its manipulated vocal bits, and its pristine lead humming a quirky and moody melody. Anstromm-Feck 4 is fast and tightly sequenced, a sort of Drum n Bass anthem twisted into a Drill n Bass brain-splatterer. Now the other tracks are somewhat less interesting, in my opinion. "F-Train" is probably the best of them, with trippy, quirky, drums, layered with a mumbling science-fiction rant. Its quite similar in sound, in fact, to his track "50 Cycles" on his "Ultravisitor" album. "Kill Robok" has a similar set of quirked-out experimental drums, but lacks the vocals, reducing it to not much more than a novelty. "Conc 2 Symmetriac" and "Mutilation Colony" are both experimental ambient tracks, neither of which I found particularly noteworthy. The last track is a passable cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart Again", and completely different from all the other tracks on the CD, as it's primarily acoustic in flavor and only moderately syncopated. The second CD is a live recording, containing mostly tracks from this album and from Squarepusher's previous album "Go Plastic!". I personally found the recording very muddled, and the live atmosphere not really worth the price of quality. I prefer listening to these tracks in their original form, as Squarepusher's music just doesn't sound right muffled. His breakcore bits need to remain crisp, and his sparkling leads need to keep their crystalline clarity. In short, I've heard much better live recordings. All in all, this CD's got some good content, but not enough of it. "Mutilation Colony" fills up an entire 10 minutes of the first CD, and is pointedly unvaried. While I like ambient music, it just clogs up a drill n bass line-up, and felt a bit suspiciously like filler. If you like Squarepusher, and already have most of his other CD's, then I'd recommend buying "Do You Know Squarepusher". Otherwise, I'd recommend some of Squarepusher's other CD's over this one, such as "Go Plastic!" or "Ultravisitor". I hope this was helpful!

This album travels from one end of the IDM spectrum to the other: pop->punk->experimental->Joy Division. Well, the joy division part was just the statement of intent. This album is great music throughout, but it is only one song of each style, so it leaves you wanting more. Kind of a death by diversity. Regardless, this album's point has been well proven by the comments of the audience. Love ~will~ tear us apart. The pop heads all love the first song, (which sort of demonstrates through the constantly shifting DnB styles, the fact that the beat style doesn't change the song that much at all. it kind of steps on the hands of the jenre wh0res out there who think that "tech step is far supreior to dark step or two step or blah blah blah.") but they hate "all that noise [stuff] at the end." On the other side, the experimental freaks all turn their noses up at the poppier songs as being sonically uncreative and overly commercial. As for the Joy Division cover, it seems like no one understood that. oh well. As music, DYKS is an interesting tour of the scene, and as art, it is the most poigniant work to date. This album is for music lovers, not trendiods with limited tastes. :-p It *was* still too damn short, and the live disk *was* an insult. Don't pay [too much]. :-)

As was noted in a previous review, when it comes down to it, Tom really has to make his music for himself. However, if one wants to make a living off of music, he must take his fan base into consideration. One could say that, with "do you know squarepusher," he has done this, if you consider insulting them as taking them into consideration. Squarepusher is one of those artists that has such a loyal fan base, that he could probably release an hour-long recording of fart noises and most of them would think it to be brilliant. I think he takes advantage of that fact with this release. The CD starts off strong with the title track, a song that is sure to go down in history as one of his best. The frenetic beats create a base for the glitchy melody and sampled vocals that are run through a vocorder to a wonderful effect. As the song progresses, it comes closer and closer to the brink of falling to pieces, only to be skillfully stuck back together by Tom's flawless programming. After that song, it's all downhill. F-Train sounds like a very bad rap song that he mutated so people would think it was creative or "avant guarde," and, as one professional reviewer pointed out, it is very poorly mastered. Kill Robok is an experimental romp that, in the end, just turns out to be boring. Anstromm-Feck 4 starts out promising, sounding like old video game music on crack, but the song never really goes anywhere. Conc 2 Symmetriac is so short that it's over before you figure out how to pronounce it's title (clearly just filler). Mutilation Colony is probably the best song on the disc besides the title track. It starts out with a few minutes of mellow organs that remind me of old film strips I had to watch in high school, and launches into minimalistic experimentalism that comes together much better than any of the other songs. Finally, the disc ends with a cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart." There is no other word for this cover but HORRIBLE. The live CD that came with this was clearly placed there just so they could charge the price of a full-length disc instead of just charging for the 32 minute EP that is the actual album. The live disc sounds like someone simply placed a bootleg tape of a squarepusher concert onto a CD, which prompts one to exclaim, "THAT'S what he disappeared from his US tour to do!? What an a--hole!" The essay that was not included with the US release (probably because he thought Americans were too stupid to understand it) is as equally annoying as the disc. It is, basically, a long winded, pedantic justification of his own existance. This just pulls together the entire insult that is "Do You Know Squarepusher," and I wish it had been included with the US release. My advice is to keep listening to "Go Plastic!" until he releases another disc. Hopefully he'll get over himself and start making good music again.

This, on the studio EP, has a few hyper and cleverly drilled arrangements, recalling Square's most delightfully frantic early 2000 output. However, even on a brief seven tracks, and despite a bit of appreciated contrast (the serviceable Joy Division closer) Jenkinson simply flies off the electro rails too easily into masochistic, irrelevant button smashing without rightful payoffs. I think he is one of the few electronic artists who can convert noise into melody, but when he is being lazy he is only converting noise into noise.

This "album" is 32 minutes long. That's half as long as most Autechre EPs. There's nothing new here...The music is unmistakably Squarepusher, and if you enjoy his style (I certainly do) you'll enjoy the little that his here. The "Alive in Japan" bonus CD (undoubtedly thrown in to justify the price) is surprisingly bad; the sound quality is mediocre and hearing Jenkinson yell, "C'mon make some ... noise!!!" gets old the second or third time around. Ever get the feeling you've been had?

Just awesome. Squarepusher was and is a pioneer of IDM. Described by Aphex Twin as the sound of sound.

Great album great group

Der Big Daddy des drill'n'bass ist zurück, mit einem DOPPELALBUM - wenn es genehm ist. Während sich die Chemical und/oder Aphex schon wieder schwertun sich nicht zuwiederholen und vom neuen Prodigy Album nichts wesentliches mehr zu erwarten ist, bleibt Tom Jenkinson Meister eines Fachs, das er mit linker Hand erfunden hat und von den meistens mit Referenzen an "ein, die Treppe herunterfallendes, Drum Set" umschrieben wird. Ein Vergleich mit anderen Musikschaffenden hinkt da also, so oder so. Alles zu mischen was die zeitgenössische Musik, wie sie Stockhausen, John Cage und Steve Reich geprägt haben, hergibt ist schlichtweg DIE Stärke von Squarepusher, auf die sogar Tante Björk leicht neidisch rüberschielt. Und dabei kommt auch der Spaß nicht zu kurz, denn ganz und gar ernst sollte man Jenkinson nie nehmen, besonders hörbar, für mich, auf Music Is Rotted One Note, bei der ich echte erheiternde Momente erlebte - zu erkennen (zu glauben) welches oder wessen Konzept er da gerade durch den Kakao zieht ist einfach eine Freude für sich. Nichtsdestotrotz ist sein Konzept wohl konstruiert und virtuos produziert. Balancierend zwischen den mechanischen aspekten heutiger electronischer (Tanz)Musik und der Freiheit des Jazz lenkt er sein Spiel mit akustischer Destruktion wohin er auch immer will und seine Fans werden nur nach mehr fragen - manchmal kann man sich halt auf seine Idole verlassen!!! Jenkinsons neuer Opus DO YOU KNOW SQUAREPUSHER ist eigentlich ein Minialbum das gerade mal 30 Minuten und sieben Tracks auf die Waage bringt. Hielt der Meister sich bisher stimmlich arg bedeckt so greift er hier kräftig zum Mikrophon und es funktioniert. Die Effekte die er seiner Stimme zufügt lassen mitunter schwer dem Hörfluss folgen aber nach einer hörerseitigen Adaption an die akustischen Geschehnisse wird erkennbar, daß der Textfluss ebenso exakt und qualitativ hochwertig ist wie die musikalische Konstruktion. Um wieder auf die Konzeption zurückzukommen, so spielt Jenkinson bei MUTILATION COLONY mit Sprache, Musique Concrète und erodierenden Dissonanzen und kreiert ein abstractes akustisches Gedicht in drei Teilen, im ersten Exposition, im zweiten oben genannte Erodierung des Klangspektrums zusammen mit dem Einfügen percussiver Dissonanzen und schließlich der Falsifiszierung des gesamten Konzepts im Dritten Teil, sprich: er wirft in den letzten 30 Sekunden alles über den Haufen, - soviel zum Thema Ernsthaftikeit. Das Album schließt mit einer überraschend referenziellen Interpretation von Joy Divisions LOVE WILL TEAR US APART und die Frage lautet: Kennst DU Squarepusher? Die zweite Disc stammt von einem Livekonzert vom Juli 2001 in Japan. Die meisten Stücke stammen von GO PLASTIC in der einen oder anderen erkennbaren Form konzentriert auf die pure Energie in seiner Musik. Wer Jenkinson für eine Stubenhocker aka Studiomusiker hält, sollte scharf nachdenken und wer denkt Squarepusher zu kenn sollte zweimal scharf nachdenken. Dieses Album ist Squarepusheristische Methodologie erster Güteklasse: konzeptionelle Entfaltung, Zerstörung und Neuerfindung auf engstem Raum. Wenn es eine Konstante in Jenkinsons chaotischem Universum geben sollte, dann die das "alles immer anders wird". Und die Frage lautet: Kennst DU Squarepusher?