Squarepusher, the experimental musician, recorded an album last year inspired by something that most people might assume to have been a psychedelic-drug-induced hallucination but that the artist laconically calls "a daydream."
In this fantasy, a magical rock band played a concert involving a time-travelling guitarist, an entire building that served as a bass amplifier and drums that switched places with each other and received electromagnetic radiation from stars. The resulting album, "Just a Souvenir" (2008), is not for the faint of heart. But if you get jazzed, so to speak, by exploratory instrumental music, it's a real gem from one of today's best progressive musicians.
Squarepusher is performing this Friday in my temporary hometown of Bologna, Italy, so to prepare for the show, I've been listening to "Souvenir." I'm constantly reminded of its similarities to "Black Market" (1976) by Weather Report, the innovative jazz-fusion group.
Weather Report was founded in the early 1970s by saxophonist Wayne Shorter and keyboardist Joe Zawinul, two pre-eminent expatriates of Miles Davis' "In a Silent Way" (1969) sessions. The group quickly moved away from these roots, embracing a highly arranged and more composition-based sound that approached rock music, with a focus on electronic instruments and hardly any emphasis on swing.
Squarepusher, meanwhile, is a one-man band from England that started out in the 1990s as a leader in the virtuosic, manic-dance-music genre known as drum and bass. Squarepusher has always incorporated jazz and rock into his music, and they are especially relevant on "Souvenir."
Though the differences far outweigh the similarities, much of "Souvenir" can still sound like a futuristic, over-stimulated revisiting of "Black Market."
For one, the fretless electric bass is central to both records. Squarepusher's primary instrument is the bass, and his playing, ranging from surprisingly ear-catching improvisations to rhythm-bending bass lines, is his music's most engaging element. "Black Market" was the first Weather Report album to feature Jaco Pastorius, arguably the most influential electric bassist of all time. But it also showcased outgoing bassist Alphonso Johnson, who should not be lost in Pastorius' shadow. Both bassists provide conspicuous, energetic foundations for the complex and highly rhythmic compositions on "Black Market."
"Gibraltar" is "Black Market's" most similar song to the music on "Souvenir." When the rhythm section busts in at 1:20, we hear a Johnson bass line that strays from root notes and downbeats, playing games with the quick and funky drum part. Shorter and Zawunil double up on melodies that zoom up and shoot back down, and I find myself nodding my head so forcefully it looks like there must be a Dr. Dre beat coming through my headphones. On the "Just a Souvenir" song "Planet Gear," Squarepusher layers synth chords over a jumpy bass line and drumbeat, while a climbing, atmospheric synthesizer line recalls Shorter's solos on the lyricon (a type of saxophone synthesizer he used on "Black Market").
"Souvenir" is a record worth hearing regardless of context. To listen to Squarepusher's bass improvisations on the song "Quadrature" is to hear him turn out scores of incredibly melodic phrases (each of which could serve as hooks for their own fusion compositions), while he ventures in and out of scales. Sometimes he glides along with the fleeting chords; sometimes he collides with them. Some of the phrases are jazz arpeggios, and some are classically influenced lines that stair-step downward, adding color to the chords beneath them.
--
Giovanni Russonello is a junior majoring in history. He can be reached at Giovanni.Russonello@tufts.edu.
