@!$%# Squarepusher

Lauren Laverne glozed to the "electro king" in her exclusive interview:

"In those circles [of hot-ticket Hollywood and music stars] you are almost kind of, like, a Godlike figure, do you know what I mean?"

Tom Jenkinson, better known as Squarepusher, was a jazz drummer's son. He was raised on the milk of Davis and Coltrane, and thrived in his youth on the sounds of LFO and Carl Craig. He would later frontline England's electro-techno scene with his own fusion of breakbeat and progressive jazz:

Utter crap.

I saw Squarepusher in his Columbus debut in 2004, and I was excited. I mean, I was really excited. This guy was the paragon of drum and bass as far as my virgin ears were concerned. Listens to his previous releases had evoked adjectives like "quirky;" "off-beat;" "manic;" "badass." This was no techno--this was Intelligent Dance Music for intelligent people like me! And it didn't hurt that my boyfriend seemed to like him a whole lot.

The lights came down. This was going to be awesome.

About half an hour into the show, I began to wonder if I hadn't made a grave mistake. For about ten minutes, the only lights that came back up were coloured spots behind Squarepusher and his eight-foot speaker cabinets. They were succeded by massive high-voltage spotlights, strobing to the beat of the music, set at eye level, directed toward the crowd.

The show might have lasted an hour, or an hour and a half, but it seemed like days. As far as I can recall, Squarepusher was the only act, and oh, how I tried to enjoy it! But the blinding lights blinked incessantly on, and the floor rumbled and my eardrums throbbed as though they would burst. And then he brought out the bass.

Here, then, was the "progressive jazz" part of the act, and it was about as fused with the beat as my head is fused to my foot. Nevermind that the notes he was playing were all but indistinguishable from the havoc that had invaded every crevice of my ear canal. Nevermind that the beat never changed--or, perhaps, that it changed so often you couldn't tell where one pattern ended and another began. This was like watching a tone-deaf guitar student take his first live solo: it went on and on and on with no nuance, no cohesion, no music at all. I closed my eyes. I cupped my hands over my ears. I turned away from the stage.

...which really encapsulates the experience of watching Squarepusher live. I felt sick, I felt exhausted but, most of all, I felt alienated by every aspect of his performance. His virtuosity on the bass is pyrotechnic, superfluous, self-indulgent and, ultimately, boring. His beats? After half an hour of sensory onslaught, I simply stopped caring.

"My instinct is to be politically hermetic to allow my compositional work to develop according to its own rules, as opposed to rules which are brought in, or guidelines or trends. Obviously, it would be idiotic to shut it all out, but I do hold dear to my little hermetic process."

Squarepusher is so utterly consumed with himself that he has forgotten his audience. To push the limits of music is extraordinary: but he has not done that here. Instead, he has pushed the limits of the human senses--an experiment with dubious merits and results about which the hermetic Squarepusher could undoubtedly care less. I wish I had known what I was signing on for before I paid for the ticket.

For all you Squarepusher fans who haven't had the opportunity to catch his live show: don't bother. At this point, his only apparent interest is in seeing just how far his "Godliness" can carry him. He doesn't give a @!$%# what you think--and why should he? He's Squarepusher, pusher of squares and the punkass kids like you who adore him. He does better work tucked away in his studio cell, where his solitarity ensures our safety. For you, Mr. Jenkins, if you're reading this: you need to get out more.

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