![]() I think the general source of inspiration and excitement has to just come from within you. It’s going to have a limited capacity to inspire in its own right. It can bring inspiration, but in the end it’s an inanimate box or a software interface. I think if you’re just trying to make music with your checkbook then you’re soft and you’re heading in the wrong direction. This, for me, is part of a broader mentality that I think is healthier. I have always tried to find something new that I can do with something old, rather than buying a new instrument. I have always just used what was in front of me. I have a very simplistic outlook on this. How has your process of creating music evolved over the years? How much did technology change the way you make a record? It’s an exercise for me to try and prove or disprove something. It’s there to try out an idea it’s not something to show the world. I make a lot of work just for fun, or an experiment like an artist sketchbook. As things went on, I started to spend longer on the pieces and eventually they started to be the kinds of pieces that I would consider releasing. I started to enjoy it, finding new ways to get new sounds out of these old instruments. I was trying to restore my state of my mind, really. At that phase it was just about music as a therapeutic tool. I started making one track a day, just for fun, and with no real idea that it was going to lead to anything. I set about just working on music with no objective but to enjoy myself. ![]() I wanted to return to this wonderful time where everything was completely fresh and just start again, basically. I guess in some way, I was trying to make sense of the situation and pay some kind of tribute to him.īecause of the stress of all that stuff, I was looking for a bit of a comfort zone. ![]() When that happened, it really strengthened this desire to return to this basic palette of instrumentation because it was the very same instruments that I began to acquire back in the day with my friend Chris. He was a scientifically minded guy, so we would spend a lot of time figuring out how these things worked and the principles behind them. As kids we had a very avid shared interest in electronic instruments. This was also consolidated by the fact that a couple months after that, a very close friend of mine died. It led me to a bit of forced time off and I came around to thinking that what I wanted to do was to get back to my roots working with electronics in music. I was actually working on the quartet with the London Sinfonietta Orchestra, but that was also requiring my input as a bass player, so I had to pause that. But apart from everything else, it meant there wasn’t any possibility of proceeding with any composition work that involved musical instruments that you play. It was a bone that has a nerve running through it, so there was a possibility of losing feeling in my fingers and things like this. Obviously this would be painful for any person, but for me as a guitar player-guitars are essential to my life, forget about my work, they’re essential to my existence. In January 2018, I was in Norway and slipped on some ice and broke my wrist. This particular record was brought on by quite specific circumstances. Quite often, when I’m working in the studio, the consideration to make records is actually quite distant from my mind. The first thing I should say is I don’t always have a record in mind. What inspired this new record? Did you have sound or mood in mind? We caught up with Jenkinson via telephone to talk about his approach to music creation, and how it’s changed over time. His latest record, Be Up a Hello, was released in January on Warp Records. He released a record of solo bass guitar songs, played with the London Sinfonietta and even soundtracked a children’s show on the BBC to ease kids into sleep. With eighteen releases over twenty-four-years, Jenkinson has explored the far reaches of drum and bass, hip-hop, jazz, dance and downtempo. Shapeshifting from breakneck BPMs and anxiety-inducing polyrhythmic attacks, to soothing atmospherics and shimmering comedowns, Squarepusher has taken on just about every style under the electronic umbrella, sometimes in the course of a single album. With his unique styles and continual exploration of sound, Jenkinson became part of an influential group of fellow experimental EDM artists and aural allies that helped define and diversify a bourgeoning genre that was still trying to define itself from the ground up. Rising to prominence in the mid 1990s, Squarepusher’s Tom Jenkinson would go on to play an integral role in the UK’s heyday of electronic music.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |