FACT MIXES - FACT Magazine: Music News, New Music.: FACT mix 493: Squarepusher
May 15, 2015 6:03 PM - Subscribe

One of electronic music's true daddies steps up. For Squarepusher's FACT mix, he looks way back, at the rave music from the turn of the 1990s that inspired not only him, but many of his contemporaries. This is Squarepusher presents Shut Up And Dance, 1990-1992, and it's rude as fuck.

Growing up, Tom 'Squarepusher' Jenkinson had an experimental approach to bass guitar – both at school, and then later in teenage metal bands – which he applied to electronic music, releasing his debut record, Stereotype (under the name Stereotype) in 1994. After a series of records on Spymania, Jenkinson landed on Warp's roster in 1995, and became part of the label's stable of 1990s titans with Aphex Twin, Autechre, Boards of Canada, Plaid et al. The 20 years since have seen Squarepusher tear up the templates of jazz, drum'n'bass, psychedelia, techno and more across over 15 albums, while also developing one of the most talked-about live shows on the electronic circuit.

Last year, the Squarepusher project reached a logical climax of sorts when Jenkinson released an EP, Music for Robots, that was written by him but performed by a trio of Z-Machine robots (including a 77-fingered guitarist and a 22-armed drummer). That hasn't, of course, stopped him: this month he released his latest album, Damogen Furies, and his forthcoming London show in October is billed as his biggest yet.

Tracklist:
  1. Shut Up And Dance – Derek Went Mad (remix)
  2. Shut Up And Dance – Derek Went Mad
  3. Shut Up And Dance – This Town Needs A Sheriff (remix)
  4. Ragga Twins – Wipe The Needle (remix)
  5. Shut Up And Dance – Death Is Not The End
  6. Ragga Twins – 18″ Speaker
  7. Shut Up And Dance – Here Comes A Different Type Of Rap Track Not The Usual 4 Bar Loop Crap
  8. Ragga Twins – Spliffhead
  9. Shut Up And Dance – Runaways
  10. Shut Up And Dance feat. Ragga Twins – Lamborghini
  11. Shut Up And Dance – So What You Smoking?
  12. Shut Up And Dance – The Green Man
  13. Shut Up And Dance – A Change Soon Come
  14. Rum And Black – Slaves
  15. Shut Up And Dance – Down The Barrel Of A Gun
  16. Ragga Twins – The Killing
posted by Going To Maine (1 comment total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Maybe it's me, but this feels really crackly and compressed - I'm hoping it's a deliberate choice, but either way I'm kind of bummed out. There are bits of this mix that I love - British rap from the 90s!- but I can't help feeling like I've already dug up a lot of mixes actually from this era that, you know, do this exact same thing better. (e.g. Cold Cut's 70 Minutes of Madness) So - definitely a bit divided, but I'm thinking I'll probably be deleting it after a few spins. (This is also making me want to revisit Zomby's Where Were U In '92? and see if that particular bit of homage has aged well.)
posted by Going To Maine at 6:10 PM on May 15, 2015


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