Seeing Tom Jenkinson (aka Squarepusher) perform live is a disheartening experience for fans. Through his records, Jenkinson weans his core audience onto the genres of Intelligent Dance Music (IDM), drill-n-bass, and experimental electronica. In concert, however, he eschews his in-studio sensitivity to particular timbres, instead bombarding his public with a stream of distorted noise more reminiscent of a heavy-metal band. Clad throughout in his preferred stage outfit (the yellow anorak, of course), he occasionally takes off his hood to voice debatable propositions such as “Squarepusher’s gonna eat your fucking face off”.
Jenkinson draws heavily on his subversive live sound in Shobaleader One: d’Demonstrator, infusing the simple logic of his production style with some virtuosic bass-playing. The promotional video for the album testifies to this acoustic-digital dichotomy: we witness both Jenkinson’s finger-picking mastery and his rave-adapted, LED-illuminated face. It reminds us of two things: first, that this man can play the bass guitar better than any other drum-n-bass artist; and second, that he is more capable of self-parody than any of his drum-n-bass contemporaries. Both traits are on full display in d’Demonstrator. The result is a wonderful fusion of different genres that exists somewhere between Squarepusher on iPod and Jenkinson onstage.
