Squarepusher and the Dawn of Man

Last Saturday night I saw Squarepusher for the first time. Besides label-mate Aphex Twin, Squarepusher is arguably one of the most respected, innovative and progressive electronica artists on the world today. He seems to be one of the Gods. At least that's the vibe I get. I'm not really a massive electronica fan. Perhaps because I've spent long hours practicing as an instrumentalist (and I'm not particularly good with computers), I do get a bit precious about the importance of hitting, bowing and blowing things to make noises rather than using computers. I quite like the quote of electrophobe pianist Keith Jarrett, who once said music shouldn't be electronic, as 'there's enough electricity flowing through our bodies as it is'. Or something like that. But seeing as we are in the year 2009, maybe I should stop being such a stegosaurus, bosh a few amphetimines and get stuck right in there.

The concert was exhilarating. I'd really enjoyed 'Go Plastic' and 'Ultravisitor', but live he played basically all of his latest album 'Just a Souvenir'. The idea seems to be a kind of electronica jazz-fusion with some tracks with a live drummer, and basically more emphasis on Squarepusher-bass-master rather than Squarepusher-demon-programmer-of-volcanic-beats- which-aurally-rape-your-ears-redefining-what-you-thought-was-rhythmically-and-texturally-possible-in-music. Hard-core electronica fans don't seem so turned on by this. My older brother said it was a 'steaming pile of gash'.

But with my relative ignorance of electronica, I found the live experience exhilarating. He stood centre stage behind an arsenal of equipment, spraying the audience with bass guitar artillary fire, backed up by a drumming tank, regularly moving to the laptop to call in for more B52 air strikes. This is kind of why I like and dislike electronica: your mind is throttled by sound. It's musical thrill-seeking; an on-going search for dirtier beats, crazed melodies and incomprehensible structures, all made on equipment that you (or maybe just I) don't understand all blasting through your ears at 1,000,000 bpm. It's like Squarepusher is a super-nerd sent from the future, giving us a vision of where technology is taking music. As the drugs and the beer flowed, the overwhelming genius emanating from the stage whipped the audience into an animal frenzy. Like the appearance of the monolith in Kubrick's Dawn of Man, we were primitive beasts jumping, dancing and hollering over one another in a state of collective excitement, fear and exaltation. That's one of the best things about monster electronica; it overrides 21st century dance apathy, but not because it has a funky beat or an irresistably sensual rhythm, but because the music blasts its way into your body at such a pace that you have to dance or you go into spasm.

It's a bit like when a baby sees something that it can't yet make sense of; it might have a positive reaction; laughing or jumping up and down and clapping hands, but it might have a negative reaction; crying, running away and later that night having a bad nightmare. I don't think I'm running away from electronica anymore, but I still have to take it in small doses. Kind of a musical ecstacy: occasionally it's the ultimate sensory experience, but any kind of dependency I still believe is the highway to musical insanity.