This album started as a daydream

This album started as a daydream about watching a crazy, beautiful rock band play an ultra-gig.

At first, a giant fluorescent image of a coat hanger appeared at the back of the stage. A couple of seconds later a full size replica of the Camden Falcon backroom materialised around the glowing coat hanger. Upon the stage was a group composed of five musicians. They seemed to be of differing ages, some young, some old. I noticed that the drummer was an Eskimo. They played instruments either of their own design or conventional ones that were modified such that they could be used to generate a range of sounds not typically associated with a rock band. For instance, one of the musicians appeared to be using a device attached to the body of his classical guitar that allowed him to accelerate or decelerate time in his immediate vicinity. At a certain point he seemed to quickly reverse back to a couple of months ago. My suspicions were corroborated by his hair and beard temporarily looking rather shorter. Sonically, this had the effect of extruding certain melodic phrases into shimmering monoliths and slow emotion wave fronts. Other sounds being generated near to him on stage also got partially sucked into the time sponge and were returned at high speed as imploded sonic pin cushions.

The coat hanger started glowing emerald green. At the same time, a river emerged on the stage and appeared to be running under the drum kit. I was concerned for the safety of the musicians being as it was that they were powering their other-worldly equipment with electricity. Just as I began to venture a comment, the members of the band that weren’t kayaking were enveloped in a localised electrical storm. As the electricity arced around various nodal points such as the drummer’s left hand, the guitarist’s teeth and a Venus fly trap that was sitting just behind the bass amp, I noticed to my relief that they weren’t being incinerated by this high voltage extravaganza. No, but it did seem to have the effect of generating a bass -distortion that sounded as if the bass guitar was actually a RSJ being played with a chainsaw, enclosed in a ventilated cabinet of fine mahogany. In fact, the high voltage was smash-mapping the bass line to a lightning wave and then amplifying it millions of times over. The bassist was now using the entire building as a speaker.

My vision at this stage was hence somewhat blurred, but I am sure I saw all of the drums in the drummer’s kit rapidly exchanging places with one another. The snare drum would occasionally rocket to the ceiling and hover there for minutes at a time, oscillating at rates factorially related to the tempo. Thus it started to act as a receiver for electromagnetic radiation emitted by nearby neutron stars. The strange lonely songs of astral bodies echoed about the room as their electromagnetic radiation was demodulated by the UHF calf skin. Then it exploded, showering the band in pieces of plywood.

It was at this stage that my attention was switched to the electric guitar player. Splinters of detonated snare drum were striking the strings of his guitar such that his right hand was free to operate a cupboard full of granite spheres illuminated in a dull orange. As he did, his person rapidly fragmented into various historical stages of mankind. For example, there was a Cro-Magnon man and a Homo Erectus playing Monopoly. The Cro-Magnon appeared to be winning. Suddenly the Cro-Magnon was in a headlock. Suddenly everyone in the room was incredibly happy. Riffs of medieval joy bloomed about the small man as he struggled to fight back tears of elation. They were happy because they were real. They were smoking because they were real. The coat hanger winked out, they thanked me and left forthwith leaving no trace save a small dent where a pantechnicon lorry had smashed through the back wall of the stage to deliver a replacement snare drum.

What to do after an experience of that order? As the room around me regained its familiar shape, I was left with an urgent sense of responsibility that I do honour to this vision of a remarkable ensemble. My memory of it was the only souvenir, and I feared its vulnerability with only a skull to protect it. I ventured forth to the studio shortly after the New Year. I emerged on July 15th. This is the result. I hope you enjoy it.

downloads

http://squarepusher.net/

this album is so fucking incredibly awesome it makes me giggle and laugh spasticly as i listen

best album so far, seriously. i mean... the guy is a genious! lol

so beautiful

Awesome imagination? Or acid trip?

  Deepex said:

Awesome imagination? Or acid trip?

are they mutually exclusive? i fucking love this album. on par with grant green - visions in quality of funktastic voyage

If you think of this album as a "trip"(of any sort, drug induced or not)... and him trying to replicate this "trip". The album all of a sudden becomes alot cooler. And now i respect his vision even more.

yes, i really really really like this! not a single bad track!

Hahaha! Listen to that! His gigs are going to be bonkers. lol at the finger clicks in Potential Govaner. This guy...

When trying to download the .FLACs (all of which exactly 93.57Mb leading to a .zip of over 1Gb):

  bleep said:

Network Timeout

 

The operation timed out when attempting to contact bleep.warprecords.com.

 

The requested site did not respond to a connection request and the browser has stopped waiting for a reply.

Somethings got proper fucked......

EDIT: Ah downloading the (supposed) 1gb zip seemed to work. Even though it were only 280mb...

Quadrature....

Fuck yes. That artwork's off the charts.. Very resonant with some me. Got the FLAC coming my way. I can't wait! Though of course I'll have to while it downloads, so I guess I'll go take a nap...

  AOOproductions said:

If you think of this album as a "trip"(of any sort, drug induced or not)... and him trying to replicate this "trip". The album all of a sudden becomes alot cooler. And now i respect his vision even more.

same here  :shade:

"a real woman" is like a musical guide on how to behave on acid, don't you think??

This album started as a daydream about watching a crazy, beautiful rock band play an ultra-gig.

and this is where it all went down hill...i cant stand this album it is his worst pile of shit. this is the first SP recording I wont bother with buying on CD

Thanks for tagging the fucking files, Bleep. :getlost: Pretty tinkly so far. Not getting the psychedelic element you're all alluding to. I was expecting more cosmic radiation.

  amni said:

This album started as a daydream about watching a crazy, beautiful rock band play an ultra-gig.

 

and this is where it all went down hill...i cant stand this album it is his worst pile of shit. this is the first SP recording I wont bother with buying on CD

you should post more

srsly

All those turtlenecks are obviously cutting off the circulation to Tom's head. Poor guy.

but it's awesome!

The track A Real Woman, makes me all warm and fuzzy inside !

Just A Souvenir is a weak album overall judging by the first listen, even though a few tracks were awesome.

  mcbpete said:

The track A Real Woman, makes me all warm and fuzzy inside !

you're a real woman after all!

is it possible that we can deduce from the this thread that some people like it and some people dont? amazing twist.

  qnio said:

http://squarepusher.net/

 

this album is so fucking incredibly awesome it makes me giggle and laugh spasticly as i listen

 

best album so far, seriously. i mean... the guy is a genious! lol

 

so beautiful

 

for real?

  children r r future said:

Not getting the psychedelic element you're all alluding to. I was expecting more cosmic radiation.

what? every song is drenched in acid. im really liking potential govaner and tensor in green...fluxgate too, fuck! epic as hell.

  kokoon said:

This album started as a daydream about watching a crazy, beautiful rock band play an ultra-gig.

 

At first, a giant fluorescent image of a coat hanger appeared at the back of the stage. A couple of seconds later a full size replica of the Camden Falcon backroom materialised around the glowing coat hanger. Upon the stage was a group composed of five musicians. They seemed to be of differing ages, some young, some old. I noticed that the drummer was an Eskimo. They played instruments either of their own design or conventional ones that were modified such that they could be used to generate a range of sounds not typically associated with a rock band. For instance, one of the musicians appeared to be using a device attached to the body of his classical guitar that allowed him to accelerate or decelerate time in his immediate vicinity. At a certain point he seemed to quickly reverse back to a couple of months ago. My suspicions were corroborated by his hair and beard temporarily looking rather shorter. Sonically, this had the effect of extruding certain melodic phrases into shimmering monoliths and slow emotion wave fronts. Other sounds being generated near to him on stage also got partially sucked into the time sponge and were returned at high speed as imploded sonic pin cushions.

 

The coat hanger started glowing emerald green. At the same time, a river emerged on the stage and appeared to be running under the drum kit. I was concerned for the safety of the musicians being as it was that they were powering their other-worldly equipment with electricity. Just as I began to venture a comment, the members of the band that weren’t kayaking were enveloped in a localised electrical storm. As the electricity arced around various nodal points such as the drummer’s left hand, the guitarist’s teeth and a Venus fly trap that was sitting just behind the bass amp, I noticed to my relief that they weren’t being incinerated by this high voltage extravaganza. No, but it did seem to have the effect of generating a bass -distortion that sounded as if the bass guitar was actually a RSJ being played with a chainsaw, enclosed in a ventilated cabinet of fine mahogany. In fact, the high voltage was smash-mapping the bass line to a lightning wave and then amplifying it millions of times over. The bassist was now using the entire building as a speaker.

 

My vision at this stage was hence somewhat blurred, but I am sure I saw all of the drums in the drummer’s kit rapidly exchanging places with one another. The snare drum would occasionally rocket to the ceiling and hover there for minutes at a time, oscillating at rates factorially related to the tempo. Thus it started to act as a receiver for electromagnetic radiation emitted by nearby neutron stars. The strange lonely songs of astral bodies echoed about the room as their electromagnetic radiation was demodulated by the UHF calf skin. Then it exploded, showering the band in pieces of plywood.

 

It was at this stage that my attention was switched to the electric guitar player. Splinters of detonated snare drum were striking the strings of his guitar such that his right hand was free to operate a cupboard full of granite spheres illuminated in a dull orange. As he did, his person rapidly fragmented into various historical stages of mankind. For example, there was a Cro-Magnon man and a Homo Erectus playing Monopoly. The Cro-Magnon appeared to be winning. Suddenly the Cro-Magnon was in a headlock. Suddenly everyone in the room was incredibly happy. Riffs of medieval joy bloomed about the small man as he struggled to fight back tears of elation. They were happy because they were real. They were smoking because they were real. The coat hanger winked out, they thanked me and left forthwith leaving no trace save a small dent where a pantechnicon lorry had smashed through the back wall of the stage to deliver a replacement snare drum.

 

What to do after an experience of that order? As the room around me regained its familiar shape, I was left with an urgent sense of responsibility that I do honour to this vision of a remarkable ensemble. My memory of it was the only souvenir, and I feared its vulnerability with only a skull to protect it. I ventured forth to the studio shortly after the New Year. I emerged on July 15th. This is the result. I hope you enjoy it.

 

zzz.

jesus christ, squarey, why do you write these long vapid posts nobody cares about?!@

honestly, the writing is better than the album for the most part, tho i can see where more people outside of the little niche of hardcore electronic music people would like this squarepusher rockband experience... a few of them are good, but they certainly won't give me the goosebumps like a proper listen of a journey to reedham will do.

of course, some will tell me i'm a curmudgeon and that i can't expect musicians to stay stagnant, he's expanding his boundaries and becoming more and more deep and this and that and hey it's his turn to do a concept album, the rock daydream where the writing sounds so exciting but the album is just like... hey jazzband type fusion with some pisstaking and let's all have fun and this and that.

others, like me, will know that drummers are typically fucking boring and whilst tommy-bw0y posesses the ability to make shit that's well beyond rock/jazz/human music and really take the mind to someplace special, you also have to be proper fucking demented to do it right and as philly-tee reported before selection 17, aka hello everything, that he was in a much happier place, well, as you can see happy = let's make me some proper cash mate and given the hipster epidemic i've seen here in america, as i cant speak for england proper, and all of the indierock and itunes and that kind of culture, this is more suited for that.

now maybe he can work on being a millionaire like benn jordan, eh?!@$%

shrug. i'll give it a proper download, burn it, figure out the 3 songs i like proper, accumulate whatever musical theory i can usurp out of it, and then prolly give it a place next to music has rotted me arse and selection 17 in my book, altho what killed me was like at least selection 17 had the modern bass guitar, which was like being tossed a bone.... this is a concept album WOOHOO2%$#$#

  "superjunglist tommy" said:

My vision at this stage was hence somewhat blurred, but I am sure I saw all of the drums in the drummer’s kit rapidly exchanging places with one another. The snare drum would occasionally rocket to the ceiling and hover there for minutes at a time, oscillating at rates factorially related to the tempo. Thus it started to act as a receiver for electromagnetic radiation emitted by nearby neutron stars. The strange lonely songs of astral bodies echoed about the room as their electromagnetic radiation was demodulated by the UHF calf skin. Then it exploded, showering the band in pieces of plywood.

the drums on this LP do not explode. they're... regular. exploding drums sound cooler and faster... shrug.

i guess when you're the fucking man and you're that high up in terms of being one of the alltime best musical people ever, you're always going to be a victim of the high expectations of your hardcore fans, you know, people who really really like your best shit i spose....

but you dont make music for people like me, you make it for the world... nice balanced people, you know, cuz the theory goes who's making albums for squarepusher, aka mister 30 seconds of 200 records in a night?! right.

quite honestly, i think this album will be underwhelming to anyone who's truly an electronic music zealot, but it'll fare far better with the hipster macintosh/itunes crowd and all those tightblackjeans-crowd emaciated looking assholes who talk about stuff like "IN MY OPINION AS AN ARTIST" and etc...

it sucks that squarepusher aint what he used to be, but it doesnt surprise me anymore, whereas music has rotted me arse was like a swift kick to the nuts in like one of your absolute favorite beatmashers goes all formal real artist and all of a sudden you're cut off from a future of music you're going to love by one man deciding to be a band all legitimate and wanting respect from artsyfartsy guitar players and pretensious smug assholes who say things like IN MY OPINION AS AN ARTIST and whatnot, and even tho conceptually i consider this to really be the same exact concept as music has rotted me arse, the songs are far better than those as he's not as sedated as he was when he did that shit, although, seriously, my kingdom for a superjungle cutup beat, right?!@

  sinicalypse said:

jesus christ, squarey, why do you write these long vapid posts nobody cares about?!@