Squarepusher – K2 Central
Tom Jenkinson has been at this for thirty years, and ‘Kammerkonzert’ — out April 10 on Warp — is his 16th Squarepusher album. The title translates from German as “chamber concert”, and that’s more or less what it is: a 14-track orchestral record played entirely by Jenkinson himself. He originally planned to work with a professional chamber ensemble back in 2016, but found that classically trained musicians couldn’t deliver the rhythmic and textural nuances he was after — the funk, specifically. A wrist injury in Norway in 2018 and then the pandemic put further distance between him and that idea. The solo version is what survived.
“K2 Central” is the lead single, and it’s a good entry point. The press material reaches for Weather Report’s ‘Body Electric’ phase as a reference, which isn’t too far off — there’s a liquid, jazzy quality to it, virtuosic bass work sitting against a laid-back electro beat with a lot of suppressed energy underneath. Jenkinson is direct about why he went this direction: “Partly because it’s an area that the makers of music tech struggle to capture, and it’s where the artist is most exposed to the risk of sounding shit”. He’s equally clear that the experiment shouldn’t read as a genre exercise: “No idea should be illegal in music. Maybe it’s risky business combining breakbeats and a string quartet, but avoiding the pitfall of bringing out the worst in both elements is part of the job”.
Tracklist:
- K1 Advance
- K2 Central
- K3 Diligence
- K4 Fairlands
- K5 Fremantle
- K6 Headquarters
- K7 Museum
- K8 Park
- K9 Reliance
- K10 Terminus
- K11 Tideway
- K12 Uplands
- K13 Vigilant
- K14 Welbeck
