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Squarepusher, "Hello Everything"
Tom Jenkinson returns as Squarepusher with a cheery and chirpy collection of songs. While the madness that runs through his music is still present, it has taken a backseat to more sedate musicianship. Most of the songs rely more on melody with the chaotic drum rushes and squawks of noise used to punctuate the pieces. While I wouldn’t call it commercial, it does sound like it could be a chance for Jenkinson to emerge a little more into the mainstream.
Warp
Tom Jenkinson hasn’t abandoned the obtuse drum programming and gobsmackingly impressive bass playing but these Squarepusherisms are used to counterpoint the more accessible song structures. Accessible might be too weak a word, Hello Everything is infectious. Right from the start with “Hello Meow,” there is an upbeat and captivating sound produced. Jenkinson arranges the piece beautifully; it builds up from a simple (by Squarepusher standards) drum beat and adds cheery and bright synthesiser and vibraphones. It is a damn fine piece that captivates all that is great about Squarepusher without relying that much on old tricks.
It’s hard not to smile or dance while listening. Many of the beats on this album actually are possible to dance to without suffering from whiplash afterwards, a novelty for Squarepusher!
Jenkinson explores a wide range of musical avenues throughout the disc. Some of the pieces use hardly any electronic equipment like samplers and synths: “Theme from Sprite,” for example, is a jazzy number that is nearly all “real” instrumentation. Of course the bass features prominently as Jenkinson shows off his skills by starting off simple and finishing with a complex flourish. At the other end of the spectrum there are completely electronic droning soundscapes, the best being the album’s closer “Orient Orange” which sounds like a fifties sci-fi soundtrack but more unnerving and paranoid. As for the rest of the album, it sits somewhere in between these two examples with Jenkinson using various permutations of instruments. It is interesting to hear him play the type of music that I normally associate with all out electronic programming and sampling on normal instruments. For instance, “Circlewave 2” sounds somewhere between Ennio Morricone and Jenkinson’s older material which is a strange but, once I’ve heard it, logical combination.
Early copies of the album come with a bonus 3” CD, Vacuum Tracks. The five pieces included here are all variations on the same spacey sounding synth patterns found on the piece “Vacuum Garden” from the main album. This companion definitely isn’t the best work I’ve heard from Jenkinson. “Vacuum Garden” works well as a single track in the context of the album but a whole EP of alternative versions is excessive. Sure, each version is a bit different to each of the others but there is not enough variety or enough going on within the pieces to warrant so many versions. Still, it’s a bonus and I suppose I can’t gripe about it too much.
Hello Everything wouldn’t be my fave Squarepusher release but it certainly is one of the more enjoyable albums in Jenkinson’s back catalogue. It's easy to listen to yetit still retains the integrity—a hard balance to keep . I’d be surprised, especially with the current media interest in him recently in the UK, if he didn’t see a return to popularity with this album.
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