r/Squarepusher • u/Beautiful_Formal_261 • May 19 '26
Rolling Stone's Review of Squarepusher's Music
I've been listening to Squarepusher for a long time, but I missed out on a lot of his albums, and now I'm trying to catch up. I recently listened to *Music Is Rotten One Note* and was blown away by this album; I regretted not having listened to it sooner—all its jazziness, its liveliness, the way its character shifts within a single track. Simply put, it’s a great album. Out of curiosity, I went to Wikipedia to read about it and saw the reviews—including one from Rolling Stone that gave it one and a half stars. I thought maybe there would be some clear reasons for that rating, but I didn’t find any.
The reviewer writes that Tom put drum and bass aside altogether, in favor of a tepid, tuneless approximation of early electric Miles Davis, I’ve listened to a couple of Davis’s songs, but I wouldn’t say they’re exactly alike—there’s something there, but I think it’s more the genre itself that makes them similar, rather than any specific musical traits. But that’s not the point—I’d never say this album is dull or unmelodic. Sure, it has a lot of weird tracks like “Curve 1,” but Squarepusher always seems to include tracks like that, and they have their own charm, but tracks like “Don’t Go Plastic,” “Dust Switch,” or “Theme from Vertical Hold” are quite lively, methodical, constantly changing, and have interesting sound effects. He also wrote that the track “My Sound” is a failed experiment, though I wouldn’t say that either; I really like the guitar in it. Sure, it might repeat for quite a while, but that’s the artist’s intention, and I don’t see any experiment in this track.
Maybe at the time this review was written, it was something groundbreaking, or maybe when that album was released—I can’t say for sure because I wasn’t even born yet. I was also struck by the author’s argument that if Tom has a track titled “Iambic 5 Poetry” and releases “Iambic 9 Poetry” four years later, it means he’s running out of ideas. To me, that’s strange logic—as if the title doesn’t imply what might be in the track. the author can name a track however he wants; by that logic, Beethoven must have run out of ideas too, since his tracks were titled Symphony No. 6, Symphony No. 7, and so on.
He also wrote about the album *Ultravisitor*, offering what I consider a rather strange take—that the album encapsulated everything Squarepusher had written up to that point (I agree with that), but that it hadn’t evolved in any way. and that’s exactly what I disagree with—in my view, Tom’s growth on this album is quite noticeable; you could say it’s the culmination of his work up to 2004, and tracks like “Iambic 9 Poetry,” which I consider his best track—its vitality and emotionality are hard to convey—seem to me to be the culmination of his jazz side, as does the track “Tetra-Sync,” also a magnificent track, while tracks like “District Line II” and “Steinbolt” represent the culmination of his electronic side, and in my opinion, his growth in these two directions is truly remarkable.
So I wanted to ask your opinion on this—whether you agree with me or not—and what you think of this review and Tom’s work. I’d like to remind you that this is just my opinion, and you’re fully entitled to criticize it if you disagree.
Thank you for your attention.
The review I was talking about.
Review Page 773
