"Do You Know Squarepusher"

[V Knid esq]

New double album. Includes live CD. Joy Division cover version.

Still the daddy.

[c s]

Originally posted by V Knid esq
Joy Division cover version.


he stole that idea from me. i was planning to do that too. shit i'm always too slow with realising ideas. 8-()

how's the album called and which joy d song was covered?

[MUX]

album is amazing as usual, bonus cd live in japan also great stuff..

Tom's Manifesto

Some people would say, in looking at my career, that it betrays a confused musical standpoint;
optimistically it is termed unpredictable, more derisively it is said to be self-cancelling, in that within the wide
aesthetic range in the work, one part contradicts and undermines another, resulting in something akin to the
mixing of all the different paints on the palette. This is an important point to realise: I take no refuge behind
standpoints. This has manifested itself as part of my fundamental creative aspiration- to see across as
opposed to seeing from. At first, there needs to be the presence both of a view rooted in inherited opinion,
effectively treated as transparent and assumed to be inherently correct, and a will to play with that view, to
endlessly distort it and to ultimately be prepared to destroy it. A kind of simultaneous faith and critical
ingenuity are required as, without the latter one is bound to a reverential repetition of received wisdom, and
without the former ones sparks quickly die away once the entrenched standpoint is supposedly vanquished.
To make a lethal attack on, say a musical standpoint, that standpoint must first be loved, understood and
accommodated before it can be assailed, and this problem is exemplified with much youth culture that
seeks to destroy its perceived antithetical enemy simply by contradicting it. It is not enough to behead your
enemy, they must first be invited in and made to feel welcome in order to be comprehensively destroyed i.e.
they must be in some way incorporated. This process should seem familiar as it is the time honoured way of
dissipating polarised energy away from musical movements: by making them popular. What I am doing is
turning this system on its head: instead of incorporating isolated views into mainstream equivalents, for the
sake of destroying culture in the name of the corporation, I incorporate isolated views into my standpoint,
indeed to the point of seemingly cancelling out a coherent view, for the sake of destroying culture in the
name of the individual. In this sense I advocate completely respect-less exploitation of all forms available,
as this is the only road that could possibly render an individual immune to being dissolved into mainstream
castration, insofar as the music industry as it stands feeds most happily on artists with discrete
viewpoints:identity-cults can only be effectively generated from one dimensional personalities. Personal
identity must be entirely subjugated and rendered formless in order to have any sort of freedom in our era. A
common error is mistaking contradiction or negation of a consensus view for freedom; this leads to
phenomena symbiotic with mainstream culture and equally poisonous i.e. movements who identify
themselves exclusively with a cynical commentary on the mainstream. This is a dustbin for so called
artists: diametrically opposed to the mainstream, they are still very much obliged to march to its tune, or of
course its inversion. Being conscious of the fallacy in their claim of independence, the views always
deliberately remain self-contained, and just as a surfeit of cultural control gives rise to overweight smug
cretins, an almost total absence of it gives rise to the revolting snide dinginess of the eternally subjugated.
The lesson is that no punks have yet been punk enough - rejecting and negating the mainstream just as
quickly becomes subsumed in its own poisonous cliches, (thus often becoming eligible for mass
production). It is essential for any creator to want to negate and to reject, but this has to be coupled with a
consummate understanding of the phenomena one seeks to reject. Otherwise, not understanding the
language of negation, the object of the negating will misunderstands what is being shouted at it, and caries
on regardless. I have learned to see inside every musician’s head because, in order to prevent myself from
being fully incorporated into any musical ghetto, I have to incorporate every musical ghetto into myself. I
aspire to make music useless as a commodity i.e. a prop for the identities and personalities of the
mindless; and if this is all that music constitutes in our era, then to maximise every conceivable parameter
until it completely destroys itself.
[Signed Squarepusher]

[c s]

hmm i think i agree with a lot of these thoughts, and the best thing about it is that although it's a manifesto it doesn't 'sound conceited' to me at all.

[V Knid esq]

Tom may be many things, but conceited he certainly ain't.

The cover version is 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'... I thought it would be complete sacrelige, but it's shockingly faithful to the original - mostly live instruments. It's really good.

[darnymarfy]

the live cd isn't really very interesting - isn't it just released tracks (perhaps bar one) being tweaked slightly.

[MUX]

nah interesting it is... but the sound is clearly quite shitty to a certain level...

um i got one question.. the album is released 30 september.. so did everyone else download it ?
my friends cousin sister niece is the cleaner at warp records.. she found it under a carpet..

[Loz]

Saw him at Glastonbury. I didn't really notice any 'tracks' as such. More a wall of sound for an hour or so.

Very good, though. I haven't danced like that for a long time.

[zombie ritual]

I'm not completely sure if I got it all right, but one consequence of the proposals in this manifesto but how is this incorporation of the music you don't like meant to happen realistically? Does this mean I really should kind of care for music that I hate? I don't see why the fuck I should "love, understand and accomodate" most of the music I am getting exposed to on the radio. But then, of course, why should I also "destroy" it? I just don't wanna be bothered with it, that's all. And if I was an artist, I guess I would have the desire to make what I want firsthand, whether it's an attack on mainstream standpoints or not.

And what about the discrete viewpoints, which are prematurely identified with "one-dimensional personalities"? I wonder what example of a musician with a REALLY discrete viewpoint incorporated into the mainstream Squarepusher could name. I rather think that those artists who were incorporated into mainstream were so because something in their works was accessible for a mainstream audience, or mainstream A&R's, i.e. because they did NOT negate it. Also I think the postulated "formloess identity" is realised to some degree in every healthy subculture, although these have certainly very strong "discrete viewpoints".

[Yer_Maw]

well bis, yes bis did a cover of love will tear us apart before squarepusher and it is pewre brilliant. as good as the original i think.

im ragin i missed squarepusher at glasto but i went and seen robert plant instead, however i ended up down that glade much later on that morning...

[OCCU PINNE']

went to raleigh and found a hidden records store and found all square{}s rec for rediculus prices.got 7 for 12$ a piece!@

[Lady E]

everyone covers joy division songs

[mattp]

and mostly not very well .....

JD covers never sound as good as the original ...

[arar]

....hmm strains of Nietzsche in the manifesto I think.....there is a line in one of his books..cannot remeber which, which goes something like..."if we love our enemies, we should also be prepared to hate our friends" seems parallel..

[praecox]

I like Nietsche
and I like Tom

and I also like Andy and Johny

[V Knid esq]

Originally posted by arar
....hmm strains of Nietzsche in the manifesto I think.....there is a line in one of his books..cannot remeber which, which goes something like..."if we love our enemies, we should also be prepared to hate our friends" seems parallel..

Hahaa... I tried to look up the Nietzsche quote I was thinking of on Google, using the words "enemy" "know" "understand", and found SO MANY variations it was ridiculous.

The one I was thinking of was something along the lines of... "it is good to have an enemy because you have to learn to understand him, and this is the only way you learn to love".

Bollocks, no - I just made that up.

Nietzsche - half way between Christ and Machiavelli.

[LEFTHANDLOU]

According to the NRA "Know your enemy, love your friends, and pack a double barrel browning just in case"

One of my favorite Squarepusher tracks has to be "our underwater torch" off the M-priest EP, Although there are many.

I'm looking forward to the new album, in the mean time I guess I will have to make do with my Julio iglasias records :)

[telephasicworkshop]

i think its kind of a jip(rip off in florida slang) to include the untitled single he relased almost a year ago as one of the "new tracks" .and the live album is really go plastic with a few minor differences...the "double cd" amounts to half an hour or so of actual "new music"..but ill get it anyways cause i love hearing new squarepusher stuff for the first time full blast on my headphones...
-my million dollar thoughts(they are worth more than two cents i reckon)
enrique
part time subgenii...full time swamp dweller
ciao

[namshub]

i thought the 'untitled' track was a vinyl only release(?), and thats why its on the new cd... he played most of the new trax in oz last year, which was a real treat.