From nick Sent Mon, May 10th 1999, 11:23
From nick Sent Mon, May 10th 1999, 11:23
<snip> > Eventually Squarepusher and his band appeared. The latter comprised: > > a DJ, who expended more energy on maintaining his herbal cigarettes than > anything else; > > someone crouching down with percussion that I couldn't really see; > > 2 drummers; > > a blind saxophone player; > > someone "playing" two long stretches of piano wire suspended in the air; > > a Man Who Fell To Earth-lookalike playing, well, I'll come back to him > > and Mr. Tom Jenkinson on bass, spring reverb, sampler and MS-20. > > At this point, I shall quote the concise summary offered by one of my > co-attendees: > > "Otherwise entitled Music to make you appreciate Silence" > > I'd been advised that the previous performance in Sheffield was > improvised and that seemed to be the case here too. Sqpr was clearly > the leader - the other players took their cue from him when he went off > on a manic solo or slowed down. Whatever he's doing, he is a compelling > performer. Someone made a comparison with Miles Davis from 1971. > > The Bowie-like bloke (costume with dangling tubes) had a laptop, sampler > and other machines, and used them to process his Vocalisations. > Sometimes too Cleo Laine-like, occasional outbursts of human beatbox > which were a highlight. The piano wire man made some very strange > sounds. > > There were brief moments when it seemed like they were in pursuit of the > same goal, mini-tunes, but for too much of the time it lacked focus. > That's the essence of improvisation I suppose, but I couldn't find a > reasonable reply to the objection that it was isolated sounds rather > than music. > > Sqpr's wish to do something more interesting live than accompanying a > DAT is laudable and understandable and I was glad to have seen the > performance, but I don't think I need to see it again. Maybe I'm just > not Jazz Weirdy-Beardy enough. > > An interesting spectacle but far from the most enjoyable Squarepusher > performance I've seen*. > > adam > > * - the winner in that category is his Leadmill set three years ago - > incredible Theres not I can say to add to the above but I would say that it was a very bad and rather embarrassing spectacle that I am not at all glad I spent money and time on. There was no semblance of a groove or song or anything at all. The bloke in what looked like a lizzard outfit continually did some bad "skoo-ba-doo-da-doo-ba-dum-doo-doooo-dum-di-di-ba-doo-da-da" type stuff and screamed now and again. Not good. His beat-box stuff was quite good but infrequent. I thought 'Music is..' and 'Mindphone' lacked structure but in parts showed a lot of promise. This was nothing like either of those records. Just bad untalented jazz improv. This would have been bad if it had been some really crap jazz band incapable of playing their own instruments and I had the misfortune of having to listen to them. But it was Squarepusher and I have the proof that he can actually make good music. Sad. Brave, yes, but also crap. Be very cautious of any future records if they feature this line-up. Nick