Squarepusher
Go Plastic

I came to Tom Jenkinson almost completely unacquainted with IDM, the Warp Records world, and what lies behind Aphex Twin. I discovered him, skipping all that stuff, through a user on this site who claimed to prefer the bass style of a certain Squarepuscher to that of a badass bassist (… I recall it was Claypool, but it's been a while, and I haven't verified it). At that point, how could I not dive in and listen to something?

At first approach, a spontaneous 'uellà!' escaped me! A show carried forward by a bassist alone on stage, immersed in a generator of quite a lot of electronics! Delight! I then delved deeper into Squarepusher, thinking I had a great bassist on my hands, and after getting to know him better, I would say that I first found a great rhythm craftsman. I am far from knowing his entire discography, but the idea I’ve formed so far is that I struggle a bit to digest him when he's strictly synthetic, as in this case. I prefer him when he produces music that's a bit more … conventional? I don’t know if that's the right term; I mean music where his craftsmanship with the played bass finds space in his work chiseling rhythm, synthesizers, samplers, and sequencers.

My ideal dimension is stuff like Music Is Rotted One Note. The title of this album, Go Plastic, perhaps should have been a signal for me to keep my ears away, as it seems like a response to Don't Go Plastic, precisely a track from Music Is Rotted…, almost indicating from the title a different direction. Electronics, period.

So why did I like Go Plastic? It essentially deserves my 5 for the first three tracks on the list: “My Red Hot Car”, "Boneville Occident," and "Go! Spastic," among the best rhythmic architectures produced by the dealer I've happened to listen to. Breakbeats with supersonic accelerations and sudden breaks. Unpackable (not in the sense of packable but impossible to dance to) according to a review I read somewhere. I trust it; I can't dance. Stuff that makes the brain shake anyway. All topped with particularly bizarre sounds. In “My Red Hot Car” there’s also a bass line (practically the only well-defined line on the record) with strange evolutions that fit perfectly into the rhythmic dynamics of the track. The five is reinforced by the other rhythmic evolutions on the record, particularly “The Exploding Psychology” and “Greenways Trajectory” (though not up to the first three in my opinion). There are also two cherries on the cake, "I Wish You Could Talk" and "Tommib," two melodic tracks.

One of the many pleasant discoveries made thanks to good old Deb (final lick).