I’ll say it up front: I’m not a big fan of Squarepusher these days. He churns out soulless drivel on record and comes across as an arrogant show-off at live shows. I used to like him though, a lot. I used to think the sun shined out his arse, and I awaited each new release with fervor, eagerly anticipating another freaky chunk of drill ‘n’ funky bass written by someone who could actually, you know, ‘write’ music. So when Music Is Rotted One Note dropped in ’98, I immediately snapped it up, ready to dance myself spastic as soon as I got back home to my stereo. But I didn’t dance that day; I just got kind of weirded out, and then, after a few listens, finally became impressed.
At the age of 23, Tom Jenkinson took it upon himself to go explore new territory. Not content with being different from the norm, he ventured to be different from his norm. Gone were the ultra-precise breakneck beats and acid overtones of Hard Normal Daddy et al., replaced by live and loose drums and alien cassette atmospherics. It was a departure that threw many fans sideways, myself included. There are no rave-ups on the album, and the only overtly computer-based sounds appear on the bridge of the spacecraft you teleport to in track four, “Curve 1.” It’s an odyssey, this whole thing.
Starting the album with a little idle chatter, you’re placed in a very real room with a very real mic; then, as if by some error of space and time, the music starts and you’re swept away in Squarepusher's approximation of fusion. It’s pleasant enough and not wholly unfamiliar for a ‘pusher fan, but over the next couple of tracks the sound seems to separate -- elements move apart and space opens up between them all. It becomes almost slack and very sci-fi.
From there, the album plays like a series of landings and takeoffs, scenes of investigations and the flights between them, exploring an outer nebula, alien voices; it is humorous, ridiculous even, then it's suddenly dark as the deepest depths of a black hole. And stuck in the middle of this is the sublime “My Sound,” the soundtrack of contentment, the raison d’etre of this whole wild trip.
Yes, the debt to Live Evil-era Miles Davis is evident, but the Squarepusher style is in the foreground, with his mastery of sampling and production shown in a whole new light, divorced from the tightly programmed beats of before. This is Squarepusher with room to breathe; Tom Jenkinson the man, not the machine. Sure, there’s tracks that fail to impress, but on an album so full of experiments it’s surprising how little is throwaway or disappointing.
Music Is Rotted One Note is the sound of a talented young musician pushing himself to try new things, and the discoveries he made fused with his previous ravings and informed everything he did from then on. But the jazz elements in his recent work have been cleaned up, sterilized, and made coffee-shop at times, while arid virtuosity abounds. It was on Music Is Rotted One Note that he really went exploring, and it yielded some of the finest results of his career -- some of the most impervious to the ravages of retrospect.
1. Chunk-S
2. Don't Go Plastic
3. Dust Switch
4. Curve 1
5. 137 (Rinse)
6. Parallelogram Bin
7. Circular Flexing
8. Ill Descent
9. My Sound
10. Drunken Style
11. Theme From Vertical Hold
12. Ruin
13. Shin Triad
14. Step 1
15. Last Ap Roach
