Go Plastic
After 1998'sMusic Is Rotted One Note, Tom Jenkinson (aka Squarepusher) could've become a respectable middle-aged curmudgeon. In years of creating impertinent, freeform drum & bass-y music, he heard enough funk and musique concrète to tap his own keg of post-rave Bitches Brew. Like Yesterdays New Quintet, Rotted was weird enough to escape dad-jazz revivalism but had the craftsmanship to merit the jazz comparisons. With bass guitar-triggered samples, vintage keyboards and live drumming, the track "Don't Go Plastic" was as good an example as any of his mature, anti-pop fusion.The first single offGo Plasticis "My Red Hot Car," a mutant two-stepping pop song. I think "I'm gonna fuck you in my red hot car" is how the hummable chorus goes, then it gets all pleasantly jungle. With the single out of the way, it's time for Jenkinson to get shit-faced drunk enough to forget all the jazz and pop nonsense, hop in that hot car and go roaring at 180 BPM in reverse through a demolition derby of dubby murk, buckling rhythms and oil-slick-rainbow melodies.It's a mix of contemporary hardcore and vintage Squarepusher where he never lets things settle, scrabbling away with sublime ("The Exploding Psychology"'s G-funk whine) and obnoxious (the static scream of "Greenways Trajectory") results. "Remember who's the fucking daddy," says a voice on "My Fucking Sound"; a mental note that this sludge-pit of fast, ragged, round rhythm, shit and noise (call it jazz, drum & bass or hardcore) is forever Jenkinson's territory.Daniel Chamberlin--From URB Magazine