Frequency State / Artist profile
Tom Jenkinson’s recordings connect virtuosic bass playing, extreme rhythm programming and a restless approach to electronic form.
A distinctive instrumental background
Tom Jenkinson, recording as Squarepusher, brought an unusual mix of musical interests to the mid-1990s electronic scene. His background as a bass guitarist matters: even in tracks dominated by programmed drums, the bass can behave like an independent improvising voice rather than simply reinforcing the kick. Early releases reveal an enthusiasm for jungle and drum and bass, but also for jazz harmony, melodic invention and abrasive electronic textures. These interests often appear simultaneously, making easy genre descriptions inadequate.
Feed Me Weird Things and an early identity
Feed Me Weird Things (1996) already shows how wide the project’s range could be. Rapidly edited percussion may sit beneath luminous chord progressions, while other passages are deliberately rough or disorienting. The music is not simply a contest of programmed speed. Its more persuasive moments let rhythm, timbre and melodic motion contradict or illuminate one another. That variety made Squarepusher stand out among producers exploring high-speed breaks in the same period.
Hard Normal Daddy: bass, melody and motion
Hard Normal Daddy (1997) is an especially useful introduction. Tracks such as ‘Beep Street’ place intricate rhythmic figures beside melodies that can be unexpectedly gentle. The bass lines sometimes move in a manner associated with jazz-funk, while the drums cut through with machine-like precision. The attraction lies in the tension between them: an instrumental phrase may feel freely played even when the percussion is densely edited. Listening for how the bass responds to the drums makes the album more revealing than merely counting its rhythmic complexities.
Big Loada and Come On My Selector
Big Loada (1997) includes ‘Come On My Selector’, a track whose ferocious editing captures Squarepusher’s more abrasive energy. Chris Cunningham’s video turns the music’s aggressive contrasts into a surreal cinematic encounter. The clip is not just promotional accompaniment: its abrupt cuts, comic menace and physical movements share the recording’s sense of unpredictable interruption. It also demonstrates how a visually distinctive work can introduce experimental electronic music to listeners who might not otherwise encounter the record.
Go Plastic and Ultravisitor
Go Plastic (2001) pushes harder into digital rhythmic fragmentation; ‘My Red Hot Car’ balances absurdity, recognisable groove and extreme programmed detail. Ultravisitor (2004) combines concert recordings and electronic compositions, emphasising the link between Jenkinson’s instrumental performances and his studio work. Across these records, the relationship between live and programmed sound becomes one of the project’s recurring questions. Neither side can be regarded as the authentic one with the other merely decorative.
Later reinventions
Squarepusher’s catalogue has continued through very different approaches, including the live-band energy of Shobaleader One and recordings more concentrated on synthetic timbre. The breadth makes a single phrase such as drum and bass producer insufficient. At its best, the music remains interested in the expressive possibilities of highly organised sound, whether that organisation is made through fast edits, bass performance or a simple melodic figure.
Connections worth hearing
Autechre share an appetite for unusual electronic structures, but Squarepusher’s relationship with bass playing and jazz-funk gives his music a very different centre. Flying Lotus connects through complex rhythms and jazz reference points, though his beat constructions tend to move within a different hip-hop lineage. Venetian Snares takes breakbeat disruption into still more extreme territory. A route through ‘Beep Street’, ‘Come On My Selector’ and ‘My Red Hot Car’ reveals how differently Jenkinson can use speed.
Beep Street and the tension between playing and programming
‘Beep Street’ is one of the most accessible routes into Hard Normal Daddy, and it demonstrates why Squarepusher should not be discussed only in terms of breakbeat speed. The melodic material has a warmth and clarity that sits in tension with the constantly busy percussion. Bass movement supplies a further level of detail, at times suggesting the agility of a live jazz-funk performance. The track feels almost impossibly busy on the surface, yet the key melodic ideas remain audible. That balance gives the recording a strong identity beyond its technical brilliance.
Squarepusher’s live bass work is important because it complicates the old assumption that electronic music involves programming while instrumental jazz involves spontaneous performance. Jenkinson’s recordings move between those worlds. A passage can feel improvised but sit within an exact electronic construction; an apparently programmed phrase can retain the shape of instrumental playing. The resulting friction helps explain why his catalogue attracts listeners from both electronic and jazz backgrounds.
The audiovisual shock of Come On My Selector
Chris Cunningham’s film for ‘Come On My Selector’ is a striking example of a music video responding to sound rather than merely presenting the musician. Its aggressive editing, physical comedy and surreal situation share the track’s nervous unpredictability. The recording interrupts itself repeatedly, and the film answers with sudden visual changes. The result can be unsettling, funny and rhythmically exhilarating within a few seconds.
That combination also makes the video a valuable document of late-1990s electronic culture. While much mainstream music imagery was focused on celebrity performance, this clip gave sound design, rhythmic interruption and cinematic invention the leading roles. Squarepusher’s broader discography has continued to move between new rhythmic languages and contrasting instrumental approaches, but the film remains a particularly vivid introduction to the unpredictable energy of his early work.