Squarepusher
Venus No. 17This year's Ultravisitor LP, a record that at times seemed to be too indulgent, too clever for its own good, surprisingly does bear repeated listening. After a necessary period of acquaintance its claustrophobic grooves are easy to slip into and this new release moves in similar circles as the mid-section of the album. The title track appears twice, once in its original form and once as acid remix. Neither have much in common with one another, apart from being awesome displays of drum programming and instinctive knowledge of how much intensity the average listener can take. For my money, the acid remix is superior, but they both rock. Tundra 4 surpasses even these two tracks, being more than twice as long, and four times as hard. However, this doesn't have any of the evil genre splicing we have seen from Squarepusher in the past (My Red Hot Car for example) and, as such, seems like a token release. This could have been made four or five years ago, and been lying around on Tom Jenkinson's hard drive for a while, for all we know. But that's fine: it's refreshing to see an artist giving the people what they want, the usual messed up hardcore electronics'n'bass that we know and love.
