Album: Squarepusher

Hello Everything, WARP

Despite its all-channels-open title, Hello Everything represents something of a retrenchment in the career of Tom "Squarepusher" Jenkinson, whose albums of computerised sample-bricolage had heretofore boldly gone where none had gone before, eventually reaching on 2004's Ultravisitor a rarefied point where frantic drum'n'bass grooves collided with avant-garde jazz soundscapes. That album also revealed Jenkinson to be one of the finest bass-players of his generation, an opinion shared by Flea and further justified here by the virtuoso jazz-funk bass parts to tracks such as "Theme From Sprite" and "Bubble Life". It's just as well the basslines are so dazzling, because otherwise these pieces are just fusion noodling of the dullest kind. Indeed, compared with its predecessors, Hello Everything is much less adventurous, with the simpler pieces, like "Hello Meow", sounding like the theme music to Open University modules from the Eighties, and the more meandering exercises taking far too long to reach their uncertain destinations. There's plenty to admire in the playing, but little to love in the music.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'The Modern Bass Guitar', 'Bubble Life', 'Orient Orange'