In 1998, Squarepusher Tom Jenkinson realized that his time-tested drill-n-bass formula wasn't cutting it anymore. \xB5-Ziq and the Ninja Tune roster had caught onto the brain-twisting beauty of unclockable bpms and soft melodic tones. He knew that to leave his mark on this world, he had to do something different. Something so different it would transcend the term "electronic" entirely, and endow him with the megastar status he knew he rightly deserved. So he recorded Music is Rotted One Note, a brilliant fusion-powered flashback that gave nods to both electric Miles and the dawn of the digital age.
After unanimous critical hallelujahs, the only challenge facing Jenkinson was how to follow such a tough act. The three EPs that followed, Budakhan Mindphone, Maximum Priest and Selection Sixteen, offered variations on the album's theme, but rarely equaled the sweet inspiration of Rotted One Note's fiery jam-sessions and dark discordance. Would he continue tracking the ghost of post-60's African spirituality or give birth to something even more abstract and outlandish?
The sad fact is, either of these options would have produced better results than the one he ultimately chose: rehashing. On Go Plastic, Jenkinson picks up where his Big Loada EP left off, almost as if Music is Rotted One Note had never existed. Go Plastic exhumes the corpse of stuttering, fast-paced percussion and arbitrary programming that was bled dry and buried in a time when the Y2K bug still signified economic collapse and nuclear meltdowns.
For what it's worth, Jenkinson does at least attempt to update the outdated. The problem is, he draws on all the wrong elements. Rather than resurrecting the elaborate analog melodies he once seemed to harvest off trees, he focuses on the goddamned breakbeats. Why? Aren't we past this? Electronic music has mutated so drastically over the past three years. It's currently some of the most creatively fertile soil the music world has to offer. Has he just not bothered to learn the new software?
These questions are unanswerable. Only Jenkinson knows why he reverted to such an exhausted form. But speculation says he's grown comfortable. After a hard day's work, nothing comes easier than lethargy, a curse all too apparent on the album's major offenders, "Go! Spastic" and "Greenways Trajectory." The appeal of complete randomness was limited even before Autechre broke the freshness seal; now it's just irritating.
Jenkinson does occasionally acknowledge Music is Rotted One Note, as on the sparse 2\xBD minutes that open "The Exploding Psychology," and the foreboding, reverb-laden "My Fucking Sound" (the title itself is a reference to One Note's standout, "My Sound"). But even these tracks would have been relegated to one of that record's numerous EPs and 12-inches.
Only a few tracks can justify Go Plastic's existence, and not surprisingly, they're the ones that sound the least like Jenkinson's past material. "Metteng Excuske v1.2" is a tense collage of dark ambience, punctuated by metallic bursts and digital manipulations of plucked piano strings that swells into rumbling electronic malfunctions and derailing train noises before ending with an abrupt, glassy ping. Sadly, the track lasts just over a minute from start to finish. "Tommib" suffers a similar fate-- a beautiful echo of the majestic synthtones and hopeful melodies of Big Loada, sans percussion, is given a runtime of 1:19.
The closing "Plaistow Flex Out" is Go Plastic's true triumph. It blends some of the jazzy weirdness of Rotted One Note with the eerie warehouse tension of Photek's Modus Operandi. 4-bit Pong blips reverberate under a relaxed hip-hop bass and snare. Sporadically, a keyboard riff pops up, so stretched and contorted that its original melody disappears completely, leaving only an oddly catchy series of slurred non-notes.
And of course, there's "My Red Hot Car," which has thankfully been slightly remixed from its single version. My feelings on this song are conflicted. On one hand, the tune is sweetly infectious; on the other, the sentiment is disturbing at best, and would be better suited for the master of electronic gross-out, Richard D. James. Regardless, you can't let this song deceive you. It stands out awkwardly, the only track of its kind, on an album of generic misfires and done-to-death jungle cliches.
Even assuming I fully enjoyed "My Red Hot Car" (which would be a terrible overstatement), it only adds up to 12 genuinely entertaining minutes on an album that nears the 50-minute mark. There is, as always, hope that he'll again equal, or maybe even surpass the timelessness of Music is Rotted One Note, but he's not going to get there by coasting.
