Squarepusher: Big Loada

Before electronica became a household word, England's Warp label was releasing disc after disc of ingenious bleeps and atmospheric bloops. The music was soon dubbed ambient, or intelligent, techno because, due to the low BPMs, about the only activity the music actively encouraged was thinking (or, cynics might add, nodding off). Gradually, the inclusive stable of Warp artists (Autechre, LFO, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, and more) began to adapt elements of incipient trends like trip-hop and drum-and-bass into its music, but the artist's unique identity almost always dominated each disc. Tom Jenkinson, a.k.a. Squarepusher, has long been one of the U.K. electronic scene's most interesting figures, in part because his music's most identifiable element—Jenkinson's fretless bass playing—seems so at odds with programmed music. In fact, as time passed, Jenkinson's obsession with legendary fusion bassist Jaco Pastorius grew. His music inevitably began to deviate from the drum-and-bass documented on the recently released Big Loada compilation (one of many records Trent Reznor licensed from Warp for domestic distribution on his Nothing label) and move more toward straight, organic jazz. The frenetic programming found on Big Loada has given way to the remarkable Music Is Rotted One Note, a record that has more in common with Miles Davis and Brand X than the typical knob-twiddler's studio exercises. At 23, Jenkinson has already reapplied the tenets of jazz to the sometimes frustratingly rigid world of electronic music, confounding those who deride all programming as cold and lifeless. Where he goes next is anyone's guess, but given his age and frequent innovations, Jenkinson would be kind to let everyone catch up before moving on. Ironically, his jazz, so overtly retro, ends up sounding new, while the futuristic squiggles of his labelmates in Plaid sound, in comparison, downright "traditional." Plaid's Ed Handly and Andy Turner, both refugees from The Black Dog, do score bonus points for one surprising aspect of their great Not For Threes: the music's levity. Whereas most electronic acts stick with crystalline synth shards and chilly beats, Plaid is playful, offering warm washes of sound and buoyant, unpredictable programming. Not For Threes is more akin to the melodic minimalism of Boards Of Canada and Autechre than the complex fusion of Squarepusher, and vocal turns by Björk and Nicolette, among others, add that elusive "human element." Plaid plays the type of pop music that science fiction always predicted, music that proves at once contemporary and ahead of its time.