Squarepusher ˇ

There is a contradiction at the heart of Squarepusher. As one of the most consistently forward looking and endlessly inventive electronic musicians of the last two and a half decades he has been utterly predictable in only one respect: his complete unpredictability. The electronic musician, virtuoso bass player and composer, Tom Jenkinson, seems so allergic to repeating himself that his behaviour can seem almost pathological. The proactive decision to continually confound expectation was something he took very early on, saying that after the release of his Warp debut, Hard Normal Daddy (1997) the idea of who Squarepusher was, had already started to “coagulate”. He explains: “It’s easy to caricature that sound. Some fast breakbeats. Some slightly questionable out of place fretless bass. Some industrial elements. Some jazz. And some, ‘Fuck you.’ But I found the idea of an identity forming round me tied up in commercial considerations really unpleasant. Something inside me just snapped. I said, ‘I can’t have this.’”