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Squarepusher is a British electronic music artist, fusing drum and bass, musique concrète, acid, with jazz influences. Squarepusher\'s real name is Tom Jenkinson, born January 1975 in Chelmsford, Essex (England).
Tom Jenkinson is a drummer, and an incredib |
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Squarepusher is a British electronic music artist, fusing drum and bass, musique concrète, acid, with jazz influences. Squarepusher\'s real name is Tom Jenkinson, born January 1975 in Chelmsford, Essex (England).
Tom Jenkinson is a drummer, and an incredibly capable bass guitarist to say the least. His style is typically fast beats mixed with jazz fusion, with use of synthesisers and samples. Jenkinson performs live with fretted and fretless bass guitars, a laptop, and several other pieces of hardware allowing him to use synths and samples. BBC Radio 1 has featured him twice on The Breezeblock show, and on the 26th June 2005 performed at the Royal Festival Hall in London as part of the show \"Songs of Experience\", a tribute to guitar-legend Jimi Hendrix. Squarepusher\'s performance was a medley of Hendrix tracks built up, and played on a bass guitar alone, with use of effects.
Jenkinson sequenced his earlier Squarepusher works on a Boss DR-660 drum machine which, actually, was never designed to sequence entire songs. Other hardware used to create his electronic sounds include King Tubby style reverbs, Akai samplers, a Roland SH-101 synthesizer, a Roland TB-303 bass line synthesiser, and reel-to-reel tape machines (though a lot of his work is sampled digitally rather than by Tape). For his earliest work, he used an Akai S950 sampler before later upgrading to an S6000. As of approximately the year 2000, Squarepusher now uses a laptop running Native Instruments Reaktor and an Eventide Orville. The man himself claims to own and use the following:
\"Bass guitars: Music Man / Rickenbacker 4001 / Custom built 6 string. Guitars: Classical and Baritone classical / custom electric guitar. Software: Reaktor using only home made algorithms. Electronic Hardware: Eventide \"Orville\" + \"DSP4000\" using only homemade algorithms/ Yamaha sequencer / 16 track tape machine / Mackie Desk / Sine wave generator / Roland SH101 / Octave \"Cat\" synth / AKG414 mics / Home made + AKG analogue reverb units / DAT recorder. Percussion: Ludwig drum kit / Balinese percussion / xylophone. Other: some wires, mains leads, a room to put it all in, cooperative neighbours, etc.\"
He also has this to say about his approach and philosophy towards his music:
\"I, Squarepusher, hold the view that the influence of the structural aspect of music making is in general underestimated. By structural aspect, I refer to the machinery of music making e.g.: acoustic and electric instruments, computers, electronic processing devices etc. Use of a musical machine is obviously accompanied by some level of insight into its construction, operation and capabilities. It is common for a musician to have an awareness of harmonic and stylistic rules which may be observed or otherwise. It seems less common to be critically aware of the structural limitations. This structural limitation is inevitable; an analogy might be to try to talk without the use of a mouth.
This point has a particular pertinence in our present era where so many pre- fabricated electronic devices populate the landscape of contemporary music making. These devices generate output according to input combined with mathematically defined rules of transformation, implemented electronically. These rules thus have a direct effect on any musical activity mediated by a given machine. Of course, this is why the machine is employed - to modify sound, generate sound etc. Yet this triviality seems somewhat more significant if one considers that the manufacturers of electronic instruments are thus having a considerable influence on modern music. Indirectly, software programmers and hardware designers are taking part.
A naive notion of creativity seems compromised if we consider that a given musical piece was at least partially dictated by the tools of its realization. Although I emphasise that never can a musician escape the use of some sort of musical tool, there is nevertheless a choice which is always made, unwittingly or otherwise. We can choose whether to understand what rules the tool imposes on our work, or we can disregard them and leave the manufacturers as \"sleeping partners\".
I suggest we can enhance creative potential by a critical awareness of the modes of operation of these tools. Thus, I urge an unmasking of these black boxes of the contemporary musical landscape. Circuit bending can be one way - analyzing and modifying electronic circuitry. Another is to understand the ways in which musical data is encoded and modified by currently ubiquitous digital means. In addition, various software platforms now exist which, with varying levels of flexibility, allow users to generate their own instruments.
The modern musician is subject to a barrage of persuasion from manufacturers of music technology. The general implication is that buying new tools leads to being able to make new and exciting music. While it is true that certain degrees of freedom are added by new equipment, it is not the case that this entails wholesale musical innovation. What seems more likely is that new clichés are generated by users unanalytically being forced into certain actions by the architecture of the machine. For me it is parallel, if not synonymous with a dogmatic consumer mentality that seems to hold that our lives are always improved by possessions.
Imagine the conception of structural rules to do with electric guitars before and after Jimi Hendrix. An instrument is always open to re-definition. Thus I encourage anybody remotely interested in making music to boldly investigate exactly what the rules are to which you, as a modern musician, are subject. Only thus can you have a hope in bending and ultimately rewriting them.
For a more detailed exposition on my thoughts concerning music making, please refer to www.squarepusher.net\"
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Awesome
This man is a genious i just want to hear
what other people have to say about him.
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holyman311 |
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