{"id":10093,"date":"2026-04-09T13:02:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T13:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/its-hip-to-be-squarepusher\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T13:02:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T13:02:20","slug":"its-hip-to-be-squarepusher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/its-hip-to-be-squarepusher\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a0It\u2019s Hip to Be Squarepusher"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Squarepusher.
Squarepusher. (Credit: Donald Milne)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2002, the electronic musician born Tom Jenkinson released his sixth studio album, Do You Know Squarepusher<\/em>. That record\u2019s mix of hardcore drum and bass, queasy acid house, and aleatory industrial, plus a surprisingly faithful cover of Joy Division\u2019s \u201cLove Will Tear Us Apart\u201d suggested that the answer was \u201cProbably not.\u201d More than two decades later, Squarepusher has remained hard to pin down. He\u2019s played with a full band of masked, pseudonymous players, released an album of solo electric bass, and composed music for a robot band. Stylistically, he\u2019s veered into such complementary and divergent styles as funk, jazz, ambient, electro-soul, and musique concr\u00e9te. His last album, 2024\u2019s Dostrotime<\/em>, essentially threw all that together with the pituitary-pounding tempos and aggressive programming of classic Squarepusher, creating a kind of maximalist career summation. Kammerkonzert<\/em>, perhaps unsurprisingly, consists of something entirely different. While diehard Squarepusher fans won\u2019t be disappointed, they might want to be prepared.<\/p>\n

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Perhaps that\u2019s why Squarepusher named the album Kammerkonzert<\/em>, a German word meaning \u201cchamber concert\u201d\u2014so the symphonic sound palette wouldn\u2019t come as too much of a shock. Opener \u201cK1 Advance\u201d (the tracks are presented in alphabetical order) charts the new direction, with a barrage of strings, vibraphone, woodwinds, and other less easily identifiable sounds\u2014Glockenspiel? Bassoon?\u2014playing short, alternating phrases. The beat, provided by live drums, lurches and lumbers, following the knotty runs of notes instead of setting up a pulse. It\u2019s an enigmatic track, decidedly modernist classical, but not academic. It would be whimsical if it weren\u2019t so heavy-footed and direct. \u201cK3 Diligence\u201d treads the same turf, with brief overlapping repeated motifs pushing against an awkward, stop-start tempo, but enlivened with snappier snare rolls. Still, there\u2019s a cul-de-sac quality to it, a gathering of energy that never gets released. Some of that might come down to the nature of the instrumentation \u2014though the rhythm section is analog, the orchestral sounds are all digital, triggered via a MIDI-guitar setup. This allows Squarepusher the freedom and flexibility to paint with a variety of colors, but too much leeway can result in a lack of flow\u2014think of the glassy stiltedness of the Grateful Dead\u2019s MIDI years in the \u201990s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kammerkonzert<\/em> works best when fully leaning into that artificiality, as on the piano study \u201cK5 Fremantle,\u201d which contrasts eerie drones and pizzicato plucks to unsettling effect, or setting it against an earthy groove like that of the harpsichord-and-slap-bass workout \u201cK7 Museum,\u201d which sounds like Mozart covering Amandla<\/em>-era Miles Davis and is the undeniable banger of the album. There are a few vintage Squarepusher moments for EDM old heads as well: \u201cK2 Central\u201d is a slippery bass number that continues to show Jenkinson as the most surprising adherent of fusion titans Weather Report, and \u201cK4 Fairlands\u201d and \u201cK10 Terminus\u201d have the sprightly cymbal pulse and bustling tempo of the dance floor. But as concluding track \u201cK14 Welbeck,\u201d a meditative rhapsody for pipe organ that recalls Keith Jarrett, makes clear, Kammerkonzert<\/em> is for the fans who\u2019ve never met a Squarepusher they haven\u2019t liked.<\/p>\n

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