From James Seo Sent Fri, Oct 23rd 1998, 17:53
From James Seo Sent Fri, Oct 23rd 1998, 17:53
I picked up the IDM Album of the Month by Sqpr yesterday... and was sadly disappointed. I knew I was in trouble when I got all the way up to track 7 and couldn't hum a single melody or remember much about what I'd heard so far. Of 15 tracks, only one song - My Sound - touched me in any way. The tunes sound like decent jazzy noodlings at best, jazzy elephant farts at worst. The fact that it's all live, no sequencing, etc. etc. doesn't impress me after being bored for an hour. I appreciate that Tom's really into jazz and is playing what he wants and is moving beyond drill'n'bass. At the same time, I've just started this past year to listen to Miles Davis / John Coltrane / Herbie Hancock, partly thanks to the ever-instructive Kirk DeGiorgio and his mix CDs. And the Sqpr album doesn't touch me in any way similar to the output by the greats. I don't think that's just because I'm thinking Miles is *MILES* and Sqpr is a twentysomething dude, either. I think the Sqpr style I like the most is in the vein of A Journey to Reedham. Incredible energy rush, melodic hooks to rot your teeth, a thousand times more inventive than most d'n'b tracks I've heard. It gets me every time, unlike anything on this new album. James Jung-Hoon Seo xxxx@xxxxxx.xxx Red Sky Interactive 921 Front Street San Francisco, CA 94111 (415) 392-2500 x250 http://www.redsky.com