Squarepusher: _Go Plastic_

I'd recommend anyone contemplating this release to buy something by DAT Politics or Scratch Pet Land instead. Those groups are the sound of 2001, Squarepusher, alas, is stuck in 1997.

Personally, I just don't get the new album, although I like some of his previous work. I don't understand why this kind of aural scribbling is considered avant-garde, or intelligent, or anything like that. In any right thinking world, a lot of the stuff on that album would be vilified as a drum solo played at double speed, but because it's been made using computers, it's automatically the future.

Now I may just be a magpie, a pop maven, a jumper on other people's bandwagons, a fairweather friend, a johnny come lately. It's the misfortune of Tom Jenkinson (aka Squarepusher) that he helped to define the d+b genre. He has every right to continue living there and enjoying rent control. But, I ask myself, did Picasso stick to Cubism all his life just because he helped invent it? Should David Bowie have stuck to Glam Rock, just because he was in at its spangly dawn?

Lightning does strike twice. Tom is talented enough to spawn some other styles, so I wish he'd get out on some new limb.

And one of my jobs as a record consumer is to not give a shit about what the common consensus is, and if a great drum'n'bass (or whatever they're calling it these days) record comes out that sounds like last years style, then so be it.

Also, what makes you think that just because something is 'popular' it can't be 'innovative' at the same time. Look at what's happening in hip-hop at the moment - musical genre starts off underground, goes supernova in wake of PE/NWA then reaches critical meltdown around the time of Tupac/Biggie/Puff Daddy in 96 or therabouts, with the hype around the music eclipsing the music itself, which became very tame and commercial. Via a brief flirtation with old-school revivalism, this then opened the door for the next generation, with people like Outkast and the Neptunes fucking with the formula whilst selling vast truckloads of records at the same time.

Maybe you should go in and make an off-kilter post-drum'n'bass influenced record. At this point in time, it would be the most convention-defying thing you could do, because it's what everyone's telling you not to do. Which, I suppose, illustrates what a bullshit philosiphy this is really.

The main criticism I can think of for the new Squarepusher is that a lot of the tracks on the record lack the melodic center that runs through his best work. The tracks that do have it ("My Red Hot Car" and "I Wish You Could Talk" being two immediate examples) are blisteringly hot.

regarding the musical-shelf-life problem: artists like squarepusher who espouse a futuristic aesthetic sort of setthemselves up for this kind of dismissal. live by the sword...

To those who grumbled about 'dated' music, I'd simply ask: if sounds can't grow stale, how can they ever be fresh? I know my ears twitch and stretch when they're hearing something that can't quite be placed, can't be filed under any of the pre-existing headings in my brain. That's called listening, and we do surprisingly little of it. Habit, as Samuel Beckett said, is a great deadener.

http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/d/dat-politics/villiger.shtml

(for rather ponderous Pitchfork review).

"If this had come out in 1999, I'd have given it 10. If I'd heard it in early 2000, I'd have given it 8. Now, 6, but let us have no more of this sort of thing."

It's not a question of whether the sound has dated so much as whether the idea's rehashed. '77 punk did sound dated by '81: not only had punk split up into the critically praised post-punk and the sneered at Oi!, but even post-punk was starting to be superceded by New Pop. Someone still making first wave punk would have in effect missed two boats.

My point being: this is not exclusively a dance music thing, and it's not even as common in dance music as some might think - Orbital's new album isn't really "dated", it's just not particularly good compared to their previous work.

Squarepusher especially can be guilty of sounding rehashed. Drill & Bass is basically one wacky idea ("hey, what if we made drum & bass totally weird and undanceable!?!?")... it's a very funny idea, and there's been some great music in this style (Aphex Twin, Plug, mU-Ziq, Squarepusher himself on occasions), but it's an idea that derives much of its appeal from its wackiness. Which tends to fade over the course of five years if nothing new is being done. Unsurprisingly maybe, drill & bass's creative cul-de-sac has pretty much mirrored that of drum & bass itself.

Squarepusher, more than any of those other artists, has barely changed his original sound (a few more jazzy frills, maybe?), and since he's also perhaps the most prolific artist of his type he has the least excuse. Which is why "My Red Hot Car", which actually does do something new, seems like a breath of fresh air in comparison. Under the circumstances the question of innovation becomes sort of irrelevant - Squarepusher doesn't want to advance, he wants to the satirise the advancements of others - but the whole point of satire is that it's supposed to be topical ie. current.

What bugs me slightly about the rush to praise "My Red Hot Car" (and yes, I do like it, but that's hardly the point) is that so many people are assuming that it is (again) such a wacky, inspired idea to do to garage what he initially did to jungle, when I would have thought it was the most obvious move to make if you were an artist desperate to extend your aesthetic and commercial lifespan just a few more months. Squarepusher's take on dancehall... now that's what I'd really like to see.

Masonic Kate said: I know that genres or music or even sounds can become dated, but it just seems to me to become increasingly quick. A song from 1980 would sound dated to us. But it would not have sounded that dated in 1984.

I think it's the other way round. A song from 1980 would probably sound pretty fresh to us, but would have sounded terrible in 1984. It's not that either impression would be more 'objective', just that style and fashion tend to move (I won't say advance) by reaction against what immediately precedes, and by revival and recontextualisation of what's a little further away.

I'd say this has a lot to do with familiarity breeding contempt, and over-exposure robbing recent art of the mystery it needs to appeal to us. (See Denis Donoghue's Reith lectures, 'The Arts Without Mystery', for a good discussion of the importance of strangeness and unfamiliarity in art.) Hype, trendiness and over-exposure in the media can all rob pop music of its mystery and hasten its demise. Music stripped of mystery in this way seems to be 'killed' but is only stunned. It will be back in about ten years in the guise of retro and nostalgia. Music under-exposed and under-hyped in its time will also be back, if it was in any way visionary, in the guise of tomorrow's curated, saluted cult pioneers.

This is the game we play, as I know it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Examples of artists who have co-opted drum & bass for non-dancefloor purposes that I think still sound pretty fresh today: Aphex Twin, Mouse On Mars, Plaid, (some) Plug, Jega, Hrvstkai (or however you say it), Orbital, Kid 606, (some) Alec Empire, mu-Ziq, Bogdan. In other words: most of them, it seems!

all kidding aside, i haven't heard all of the new SqP LP yet, but red hot car was catchy, but i got tired of it quickly. the new oval, scratch pet land, and mouse on mars albums all thrilled me a lot more. actually, as blasphemous as some people may find this, i thought the new autechre was a bit disappointing also... perhaps my tastes are changing, or perhaps i'm starting to hear more artists who make the sounds i hear in my head... though i liked the new Prefuse 73 album, which is essentially mildly abstract hip hop tracks... not innovative, but funky as all hell. i love the new air album mostly because when i first listened, it was nothing like i'd imagined it to be... and it was still catchy as hell.

it may be important to be trendy, but it can also be liberating to be nonchalant about your listening tastes- which usually starts new trands anyhow.

Great art transcends it's status as a commodity, and probably it's chronological creation also.

Sly Stone stilkl sounds fresh to me, so does Aphex Twin's ealy ambient stuff, just 'cos it's wicked.

This sort of timelessness is not necessarily a good thing though: the same could be said of house music, which up until very recently had not done anything particularly new in ages. Is this a good thing? I'm not so sure. Compare and contrast with hardcore/early jungle, which was literally built out of cross-referencing with other contemporary productions, and all the better for it I say.

even if theres no irony intended, it still isnt particualy exciting for me.

i just found it strange that all these (warp-type) people did exciting radical things a few years ago, in terms of beat production, but when r'n'b + garage started to go way ahead, they sort of refused to take it seriusoly and carried on produced the stuff they had been for ages....'selection sixteen"???

but its not bad....

Actually, there was a 2-step homage prior to "My Red Hot Car" - Beta Band's "Sequinsizer", which also managed to be a much better record in and of itself.

(er, clarification of my thoughts on the new squarepusher: it all sounds the same, unlike feed me weird things, which is rather ecletic and is also glorious. 'my red hot car' reminds me of 'windowlicker' which of course is a far better song.)

topics i am posting about far too much on my heralded return: 1) the new squarepusher's abject suckiness 2) the new plaid's abject prettiness. but it's okay because I LOVE EVERYONE.

Over the Squarepusher vibe? I don't much care for the jazzy bits, but I am so not over drill'n'bass. I sulk at the mere implication it might be outdated, because if I ever release anything in the foreseeable future that's roughly where I'll be. Hopefully Hrvatski will get round to releasing the album he's been promising for ages and show all the drill'n'bass-haters how wrong they are. :)

again you are all pricks

Everyone stil enjoying those old DAT Politics records here in the future?

Go Plastic rools.