The future can be a slippery creature, and it's not entirely clear where in the when Tom (Squarepusher) Jenkinson is looking to pitch his tent. For all his, "coolest guy at the D&D table," knowledge and ability on, the new album, Just a Souvenir, he seems trapped in a world where experimentation struggles to escape the gravity of homage.

Squarepusher has shifted since arrival between electro jazz, IDM and back and forth through the porous sub-categorical borders contained by those genres. He's often seemed a tight-fisted experimenter, rebuffing outsider criticism because any opinion not acknowledging the music's essential genius can be dismissed by insiders as not, "getting it." That's fine. I'm member of my own share of insular musical worlds. But, while admitting myself an outsider in this case, I do have a few distinct opinions concerning Just A Souvenir.

To me Jazz loses its thrill at the threshold where personality is eclipsed by technicality. That obviously marks me as a particular type of listener, a type that is instantly off put by the thin unreformed electro-cool of a lead track like Star Time 2. This is an irredeemably old and outmoded idiom that sounded embarrassing and sonically two dimensional even in its own time and as homage is just embarrassing to everyone.

From there it's a little hard for me to play along affably. Though the bass work on track two (The Coathanger), when not encumbered by screwy "Mr. Roboto" vocals, adds a fresh sonic dimension.

Generally speaking Squarepusher is interesting when using and sampling sounds and instruments with depth, personality and (the buzzword of the evening, dimension). The pishy drug-addled futurism of the 1970's has zero fascination and cannot lift past its notice as weird and completely a-symmetrical with effective musicality. For evidence of this hear the utterly soulless funk of A Real Woman.

I realize this track is intentionally cold and employs heavy bass and drums as counterpoint to try and blow my mind while a robotic voice tells me I'm real but…haven't you heard Radiohead's Paranoid Android? Screw your nose up all you want at my Philistine popular tastes but comparing the latter's blend of organic instrumentation, edgy technological squall and lyrics about the pains of not understanding emotional currency, to this attempt at the same; it's like comparing Forbidden Planet to 2001: A Space Odyssey (ahh…now I'm speaking the language). And while some can get goofy thrills from embarrassing relics, people like me (I know you're out there) cannot.

Just a Souvenir works in fits and starts. The very next track after A Real Woman, Delta V, delivers both passion and performance with distorted bass/guitar and break beat drumming. And instrumental interlude tracks like Open Society and Aqueduct do rouse curiosity about what may be around the next corner. As the album continues the ticks and tricks lean toward the effective by a general margin of three to one, so I cannot with hold my recommendation. Though, over 14 tracks, the Squarepusher idiom wears a little thin. But if you are someone who has listened to an entire album of his before Just a Souvenir should pose no particular challenge.

Release date: 27/10/08
Artist website: www.squarepusher.net
Label: Warp

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