Saturday, November 27, 2010

Ceephax & Squarepusher: Exploring the Jenkinsons



As per usual Ceephax Acid Crew (Andy Jenkinson) has us on an Acid-Train to a sweaty-convulsing music mecca. After the initial bitune/acid frenzy he slows down the pace to allow us to not only collect our thoughts, but prepare ourselves for a final acid onslaught. He achieves this with his typically playful, yet masterful blend of ad-lib music manipulation and poker straight sequencing styles. By many he is considered the bastard child of the infamous Jenkinson family, but in the post-Ultravisitor years this is now proving to no longer be the case. Since Hello Everything, Squarepusher (Tom Jenkinson) has proven that more mainstream interpretations of his music may hide the odd gem and even be considered ok, but the spirit of his earlier work has dissipated, leaving us with highly polished (near perfect work) that I feel is inherently inane and lacks the emotional depth that his previous albums foam at the mouth with. Enter Ceephax, with his ludicrously chaotic style that oozes emotional clarity, whilst also not being afraid to parody and mock the sites of this definition. He lacks the ego of his older brother and strolled casually amongst fans at his last Irish gig. We openly engaged in conversation with him at this gig about the availability of some of his earlier vinyl and his 'setup'. After this, the gig that he launched at the audience only served to fuel both the raw and frantic nature of his talent, whilst also expressing a clear sense of his easygoing personality that we had only just experienced a sample of. My advice to Squarepusher is that he should take a leaf out of his brother's book and leave the vocoder to one side and get back to basics, if not he is running the risk of shifting from the niche into the banal or even worse, becoming a mainstream puppet that casts out all integrity in favour of a fat paycheck.    

2 comments:

bondovision said...

I don't agree. You're only comparing them because they are related but music-wise the comparison falls down as they have totally different styles. And for what it's worth I think Squarepusher is still making amazing music. His sound is progressive and changes from album to album. Perhaps you don't enjoy his latest evolution as much as previous ones, fine, but it's not fair to say his music is now 'inherently inane'! Have you heard Quadrature, Tensor in Green, Paradise Garage? Awesome recent tracks on a par with anything he did before imo. They only Jenkinson parellel I would make is that their music is kind of mental and high-energy. Btw, I like your profile picture.

Anonymous said...

First of all bondovision,

Cheers for reading the article and thanks for your response. I think the way I was going with this article is that obviously as a big fan of Squarepusher's earlier stuff I feel that the direction he has taken his music is not as powerful (for me) as much as his earlier work. I appreciate that I do have quite the penchant for all of his early stuff (especially Ultravisitor). So as for the infancy type stuff Ceephax's playful and freshness has pretty much raised him above his older brother IMO. I get where you are coming from and to be honest it is generally a split camp on whether or not Squarepusher's new stuff is any good. I posted this article on a Squarepusher forum and got a mixed response. Many people were protecting his newer stuff, whilst many also agreed that he has not gone in the right direction. I guess in general it just boils down to a matter of taste.

Anyways thanks for commenting and hope you enjoy the blog.

Peace.

Owlwink.