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This is the prolific Tom Jenkinson's sixth
album for Warp, and still the creative fire burns
brightly. He remains an artist whose work demands to
be heard, its direction far from predictable and its
style never set in stone.
That said, Jenkinson seems to be moving to an
improvised form of melodic drum and bass, softening
the sound palette as he does so. Hello Everything,
then, lacks the confrontational sharp edges, but stops
some way short of becoming easy listening.
The first few notes confirm Hello Meow as a rare
commodity, a potential single with its catchy hook.
Perhaps that's taking things a bit far - after all,
drum and bass has never been a staple of the daytime
airwaves - but the track recalls the jazzy ambience
that artists like Alex Reece brought to drum
and bass in the mid 1990s.
So a friendly sound it may be, but peel back the
layers and a keen sense of structure is revealed,
along with delicate touches of orchestration.
Vibraphone motifs drift in and out of the picture, the
breakbeat rhythm chatters and crisply propels things
along. This is the case elsewhere, with no sign of the
industrial sounds that often crop up in Jenkinson's
frenetic live shows.
The delicate scoring and light beats that
characterize tracks such as Welcome Europe are
complemented by warm, funky bass loops and improvised,
synthesized treble lines. Harmonies are often complex
and fast moving, the music airborne and nippy.
Just when you think you've cracked a Squarepusher
blueprint however, things take a more sinister turn.
Vacuum Garden is more a noise track than music and is
a disquieting experience, an enemy plane passing
overhead. This spills over into Circlewave 2, where
scattered drums and a languid guitar line take a while
to lighten the mood. Once achieved a Latin-inflected
improvisation takes over, loosely based on Hello Meow,
and the warmth returns.
Plotinus, meanwhile, combines Squarepusher old and
new, with a beat that zips along at well over 160bpm,
the overall sound largely ambient to start with, but
as softly shifting harmonic patterns compete with a
fast, softened bass sound the drums start to take
over, with signs of the infamous "drill and bass."
Once again this is a thought provoking and
stimulating listen from Squarepusher, continually
developing his style and surprising in his lightness
of touch and inclusion of Latin and funk influences.
It will be interesting to see where this takes him
next.
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Mercury Prize 2009 nominees
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