I ignored it when it came out. The first time I have actually ignored a new SP since I got into him. Since Hard Normal Daddy I’ve been waiting for him to make another classic, but it seems that everything he’s released in the last 10 years has had 1 bona fide classic track on it and 7–8 awful jazz wank exercises.
So after the nicely realised, but not really that amazing “Ultravisitor” I’d decided that enough was enough. But just as I turn my back Tom Jenkinson decides he’s not going to subject us to another 50 minutes of filtered slapbass and echoey jazz drumming but go back to the style he dropped back in 1996 of nosebleed drum’n’bass breaks and crazy pogo madness.
It’s not that this is anything new, not by anyone’s standards, Drill’n’Bass being a bit of a dinosaur these days. But something about this really works and reminds me of what was fun about the genre back in the day. Such a shame it didn’t come out in 96, rather than 06.
I really like it! Lots of happy, video game-ish analog synth melodies.
Only things I don’t like: 1) track 2 is awful jazz wank 2) the “drill n’ bass” beats are kind of loopy and lazy (but aren’t really the focus anyway).
3) there are still a few “oh stop this nonsense” tracks on there. The last track for instance is 10 minutes of echoey noise.
I love the 10 minutes of echoey noise songs, especially as a foil to the army of broken droids craziness.
Haven’t heard this yet actually though, so maybe I should hold out judgement.
I actually think Ultravisitor is a lot more interesting that this new one. I wish Ultravisitor was about 20–30 mins shorter, but the good parts are really fucked up, whereas new one seems pretty down-the-middle for Squarepusher.
Ultravisitor is more interesting than this new album, though I find it surpisingly bareable. The beats seem completely phoned in and there’s some nice enough melodies but it feels a bit redundant. I don’t think any of his albums are good though, I’ve never listened through a whole one.