Track of the Moment: 4001 by Squarepusher

Stanley Kubrick is actually alive, and 30 years younger than people think

You probably haven’t heard of this artist, although you probably should have. So I’m going to throw on my Ray Bans, pull up my cut off jean shorts, and take my fixed gear bike over to Starbucks to write this on my Mac.

Now, I’ve only heard of Squarepusher a few months ago, but he’s apparently been releasing music since the mid-1990’s, with 15 albums and a ton more singles, eps, compilations and remixes. I can’t comment on all of his stuff, because I’m a human being who needs to make 2 of these articles a week, along with a rap article once a week, but I will talk about his new album. And let me tell you something – it’s fantastic, if you can handle it.

When I say “handle it”, I’m not talking about how much bass or Skrillex-like wobble that he throws at you; Squarepusher is the kind of artist that will make the average person cringe and old people say “you call this music? In my day, our musicians had class and spent 90% of their day drunk.” He’s heavily, heavily influenced by jazz, and not in the Flying Lotus sense, where he just incorporates jazz drums, horns, and strings into the mix. He’s pure acid techno, and have no doubts about that. But at some point, if not for the entire song, Squarepusher will make his track devolve into randomized madness, with random stops, cuts, sounds, pitch shifts, and speeds. It’s the very definition of jazz; organized chaos and experimentation. On top of that, Ufabulum features something new for him – there’s no live guitars or drums; it’s all from his djing equipment.

Now I’m sure he’s a fine musician, and is solid on a guitar, bass, or on the drums. But on this album he shows off just how amazing he is behind the boards. I’ve tried a little DJing before, and can appreciate good technical ability when I hear it. And when you listen to Ufabulum, you can tell that the amount of knob-twindling he needs to do make all of those sounds happen is impressive. It may sound random, but a lot of what he’s doing makes sense from a musical standpoint in the song. All of the interruptions and random sounds are relatively on beat, and seem fitting for the tone, mood, and style of the song. It’s fairly inaccessible, even coming from a guy who likes Lil B, but it’s definitely worth your attention, and you can take away a lot from the album. Give each track a listen, even if the 10 track album is a solid 51 minutes long of seemingly random chaos. In fact, it even kind of grows on you after a few listens.

I can’t recommend this to everyone; to most, it’ll sound like an 8 year old playing around on a mixing board. But if you dig deep and listen close, you’ll find some gems like “4001”. It’s a great introductory track to Squarepusher’s current direction and what I imagine is his general sound (I didn’t do a whole lot of research, cut me some slack), which is probably why he put it first on his album. It’s an echo-y drum and bass track with some ethereal synths. Then about a minute in you get the random sounds and cuts I was talking about before a short lull. Then it goes back to the opening sequence and quick breakdown, but he hints at what’s coming next with a few twists right before it. Then comes in the massive bass and soaring synths, before coming into more of the experimentalism. It’s a good track to cut your Squarepusher teeth on. If you’re looking for some more accessible stuff by him, check out “Unreal Square”, “Stadium Ice”, and the very orchestral “Red in Blue”. If you’re a brave soul, check out “The Metallurgist”, “Dark Steering”, and “Drax 2” for some crazy djing.

Apparently, his lawyers are pretty damn good at making sure no videos make it to Youtube, so I'm going to have to share "Dark Steering", because the video is pretty cool and it's a solid song. Please don't be mad at me.

Track of the Moment: Bill Gates/Never Leave by XXYYXX

If you follow what I write (which is a whole bunch of people, or at least that’s what I tell myself to make me feel better), then you know I’m a huge fan of open beats and lots of lows/bass. However, I’m generally not a fan of chopped and screwed songs, and that’s where XXYYXX doesn’t sound like he would appeal to me. However, there are a few artists who are good at it; The Weeknd on the track “Initiation”, Pogo (who will get his own TotM soon enough), and XXYYXX.

For those that don’t know (which I assume is most of you, if you haven’t already Googled “Chopped and Screwed”), is when the DJ takes a vocal track and divides it up into small pieces so that it’s mostly just fairly unintelligible syllables, although the bits can be long enough to include a word or 2. Once the DJ has his “chopped” vocal samples, he then “screws” them by playing with the pitch and length of each sample. While it may sound like it would hectic, a good artist can do some amazing things with it, and use it the same way someone would use a guitar or synth. Which XXYYXX does better than most of what I’ve heard.

He’s currently got 2 full albums and an EP out, with XXYYXX (that’s his 2^nd album) and Mystify (that’s the EP) being the good ones of the trio. XXYYXX features more of what I like; very calm, open beats with minimal sounds, relying on extended chopped vocals and the occasional synthesized sound. It’s rather ambient, but it’s the good ambient – the kind that you put on in the background, but still find yourself splitting your attention.

However, Mystify is a crossbreed of XXYYXX and Flying Lotus’s Cosmogramma, which, if you remember, was one of my top 42 albums. While it does have a few chopped and screwed vocal elements to it, it mostly stays in the soft-jazzy realm with multiple layers (but nothing that approaches FL’s controlled chaos), crackly beats, quiet and omnipresent low-frequency synths, and a variety of MIDI beeps and boops (which sometimes get replaced by a cool synth). It’s a bit more fun than the album up there, but still XXYYXX’s own ambient sound.

Check him out on Band Camp. His stuff is only a $1 there, so it’s a pretty low-risk investment. You can also stream all of his stuff off of Band Camp, so you can try before you buy. But to save you that extra step that we all know you won’t take, here’s a little something off of Mystify, and a solid track from XXYYXX.