This week’s tune is “Stadium Ice,” a rather epic tune by Squarepusher. Most of the tracks on the album are pretty wild, but this one is more tame. It stands out to me the most because there is a huge amount of charm lurking within its layers of sound. Now, Squarepusher is a pseudonym for Tom Jenkinson, a UK-based guy who has been in the electronic scene since the 1990’s. This guy has a ton of influences, from metal to jazz to drum-and-bass to techno and house. Plus, he is an excellent bass player and composer. I don’t think he plays bass on this album, yet what is clearly apparent is his sensitivity to composition and really making a tune coherently shine in its own glory. You can tell that he has his artistic approach to electronic music solidly down. The motifs are all wonderful. The form is ABAB. But he goes off the traveled path and with a huge leap in intensity. Think of it like a classical piece that presents the material, and then after the exposition the piece then shows off variations on the melody. It is similar here, but the variations are completely timbral; the melodies stay the same. So essentially he presents the ABAB tune, and then has a ton of fun with it by layering the original melodic idea into the aggressively beautiful timbres. It can be therefore thought of as Intro-ABAB-interlude-B1A1-Outro. What always gets me about this tune is the beauty within the aggressiveness. You hear certain harmonic ideas that are very jazz-like. You’ll then hear pop harmonies that are interwoven. The melody draws you in; there’s something about the repetition of notes and the use of similar contours that just grabs you. Overall, Jenkinson is a master of sounds. Enjoy. https://youtube/watch?v=I7_iryGZzYI
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 06:13:16 +0000
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