Squarepusher: Ultravisitor

A shifty character from the upper reaches of intelligent dance music, Squarepusher has exhibited a fascinating tendency to derail himself over the years. He's always kept one foot in heavily tweaked drum 'n' bass, but the other has been liable to kick into jazz, ambient, two-step garage, and any number of realms he parades out to parody or pay tribute. Squarepusher has never failed to stretch, but his restless experiments—played as much as they are programmed—usually pack a lot of aimless flailing into otherwise worthwhile adventure.

His most overtly musical album since 1998's jazz-fusion exercise Music Is Rotted One Note, Ultravisitor serves as the best-yet summation of his various dangling threads: manic beat mashes, electric fusion strolls, impudent pile-ups of electronic collage and prog-rock reach. All of the pieces have dotted the albums that made Squarepusher a sort of second-tier Aphex Twin, but the new record gathers them into a set that draws from his growing reputation as a staggering stage act.

Some of his ideas go horribly awry: The electric-bass solo in "C-Town Smash" sounds like some dude jamming in a music store, and the crunchy guitar in "Steinbolt" suggests a CD skipping in a metal band's tour van. But wrong turns have always been part of Squarepusher's charm. They wind up in an intriguing place in the title track, which laces whip-crack jungle beats through synth riffs that straddle '70s jazz and '90s acid-house. In "Iambic 9 Poetry," Squarepusher takes a rare walk through the park, with gorgeous keyboard melodies raining down on acoustic drums that splash them back up.

The album could have been better at half of its 79-minute running time, but its schizoid digressions (and random misfirings) all sound derived from the same brain. He's never been less than heady in the past, but Ultravisitor shows Squarepusher more actively thinking through what makes him good, bad, and whatever comes between the two.