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EDIT INFOSquarepusher - Ultravisitor
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Album Details
- Artist: Squarepusher
- Album: Ultravisitor
- Label: Warp
- Year of Release: 2004
- ME Rating:
- Reviewed by: dscanland on 2004-06-07
RecommendI think Tom Jenkinson is a wacked out lunatic. You have to be to create music as warped and as brilliant as this. For those of you unfamiliar with Squarepusher, you need to take the time to get to know Tom. His music is all over the place. It can be a gentle caress as the lead off title track starts out or the gentle jazz noodlings of "I Fulcrum" or it can be the utterly unlistenable "Steinbolt". Now a days you can't really have one without the other. It's really too bad that Tom can't find a happy medium because he shows that he really is adaptable. I would really like to know who is playing the guitar on "Andrei". It is one of the most beautiful guitar instrumentals ever recorded. Ultravisitor is an album that incorporates pretty much everything that Squarepusher has been known to do. Nothing really groundbreaking here but you do have to hear some of this music to see what else is going on in the electronic beats world. With the two different extremes represented here Ultravisitor ends up just becoming frustrating rather than a good listen. Tom needs to get another persona in the mix and keep the noisy, avant-garde stuff on one and the musically brilliant stuff on the other.
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on 2008-03-25 big brekfest Said:
Ultravisitor is not an album for the uninitiated. It's not an album for Electronica fans. Ultravisitor is for Squarepusher fans alone.
After Tom Jenkinson's sonic freakout with Go Plastic, where he took his interest in noise pollution to an extreme, he needed to come back home to remind everyone why he is one of the proud few vanguards pushing electronic music forward into untamed and unexplored territories. Ultravisitor is Tom Jenkinson coming home, much like Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special.
The sequenced virtuosity of the opening title track quickly gives way to his more jazz-based fusion sound. While his sequenced melodies and frenetic drums define his sound, Jenkinson's electronic work rarely upstages his work with live instruments. From the stellar bass guitar playing of "Tetra-Sync" to the sweetly hypnotic drums of "Imbalic 9 Poetry," Ultravisitor brings a very human element to a typically cold musical expression.
This is what makes Ultravisitor - and by extension, Jenkinson himself - such an enigmatic listen. It's the cyborg-like symbiosis of his musical abilities mixing with his technical abilities to bring out the insane soundscapes in his head. But ultimately, if the listener is not in tune with what he's bringing out, it can be jarring and unfocused. Jenkinson's Squarepusher work is incredibly focused, personal and unforgiving to the listener, but the softer, organic movements within Ultravisitor help to smooth the experience. Still, it's a bumpy - but brilliant - ride through the clash of man and machine. 10 out of 10.
Rating: 10/10
