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| All music is a product of human activity, none more obviously mechanistic than electronically created sound. |
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It is to Tom Jenkinson's credit that he both revels and encourages us to revel with him in a love of the base electronic glitchiness that is present in all his work. His enthusiasm for sounds many other musicians would not even consider worthy to be noise confronts us frequently, and his transforming of such noise into structure is admirable on this record. We are kindly requested to appreciate the innate qualities of this sound alongside analogue bass and drums, and in the meeting of the three. With his utterly psychotic, inimitible sound, he has simultaneously created and pushed the envelope of so-called drill and bass (what is it with these names?!). This latest Squarepusher outing has variously been described by reviewers as mature, too long, progressive, indulgent and unique. The problem is that all these comments reflect accurately on the album; I am torn because there is both so much to love and so much to dislike. At this point, however, I must do the reviewer thing and start criticising, but it is worth keeping in mind this frame of reference when picking apart the music.
"Ultravisitor" opens the album in classic Squarepusher style, but transforms into a second, majestic echo-laden movement. As ever, Tom Jenkinson is not content to sit on any one idea for too long. We are faced with both the incredible musical onslaught of "Steinbolt", "An Arched Pathway", the post-rock shades of "Iambic 9 Poetry" and the quietly shimmering acoustic tones of "Every Day I Love" all compressed onto one 80 minute plastic slab. There are the laid-back sounds of "Circlewave" rammed against the old-school jungle of "District Line II", replete with its "Come On My Selector" reference. This is Squarepusher at his most multifarious, and given that this record is mostly very enjoyable, Jenkinson deserves great praise.
There are some truly great moments on this album. A seamless blend exists between real and sequenced instruments, as demonstrated deftly in "Tetra-Sync" when the live drums subtly transform into excited Squarepusher breaks. Both the ambience and mania can coexist peacefully, as seen in Jenkinson's other work, and this target is also achieved in Ultravisitor.
The failure comes across as lack of focus or conciseness. Other reviewers noted Ultravisitor spoke of a man at peace with his art. Being at one with your creation can invite in extraneous matter that communicates little, simply because you have lost focus on the centre of your art. Losing this central vision may lead to the inclusion of elements which would have been painstakingly mulled over, and subsequently rejected, if the artist was a little more nervous about their own artistry. "Andrei" is a good example of this effect. This slightly false pseudo-Baroque piece comes across as half-baked; the problem is that Baroque counterpoint forms demand that you either get your episodes and cadences right, or are some genius composer, like Bach. When Jacques Loussier integrated Bach and jazz, he did so by respecting both the framework of Bach's stylings and the scaffolding of jazz. "Andrei", however, appears to be meandering, unsure of what is going on. Much better musically is "Every Day I Love", which provides a satisfying acoustic completion to the album. At any rate, Jenkinson should be praised for having the nerve to include these quite contrasting pieces of music.
Jazz is, of course, very much central to the spirit of Squarepusher. Tom Jenkinson's highly proficient - but eventually indulgent and sometimes boring - jazz bass solos contrast with many of his previous albums' use of solos firmly as a musical device. In Ultravisitor, they seem unnecessarily extended. A jazz trio or quartet trade on the different competences and styles their individual members posess in order to create interesting and challenging music. An improviser faces a difficult struggle if they have no rhythmic framing, and such attempts only work in certain circumstances. Coltrane's Blue Train is a prime example of the controlled use of extended melodic improvisation with sections of very sparse rhythmic reference points. Jenkinson's hyperactive jazz solos worked to great effect in Hard Normal Daddy, but they feel too indulgent and aimless here. There are moments when such elements make sense in this album, such as the excellent work in "Tetra-Sync", I suspect, however, that the live feeling of the album was intended to make us excuse the navel gazing that appears a little too often.
Ultimately, Ultravisitor succeeds if your criteria are diversity, insanity and progressiveness, but fails if you favour focus, consistency and succintness. |
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| Stuart Reeves - 7/10 |
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