Bleep

The tireless, electronic fusioneer, Tom Jenkinson, returns with his much anticipated hyper, effervescent follow up to the complex electro-funk of ‘d’Demonstrator’ in his other guise, Shobaleader One. As much as ‘Ufabulum’ retains complex, classic Squarepusher characteristics, the album remains accessible and fun – heightened by sinuous, almost trance-like melodies. Having been entirely made without the help of any live instrumentation, ‘Ufabulum’ concentrates quite heavily on the forms and functionalism of Jenkinson’s drum ‘n’ bass, breakbeat and junglist roots. Yet this time round, those aforementioned trance synths take on especially anthemic form, especially so on opening track ‘4001’, with stadium-worthy breakdowns to lose your breath to - a humorous touch perhaps from Jenkinson. The album takes note from this for most of the first part of the album concentrating on big-room melodic hooks and maximalist theatrics. Yet, die-hard fans shouldn’t be alarmed by the hyper-evolution of his sound on this album, there’s still enough high-level acid malformation for the fanboys out there on closing tracks ‘Dark Steering’ and ‘303 Scopem Hard’- two manically veering, frenzied compressions. At minimum, it’s the sound of an artist with an awareness of the shifting facets of contemporary sound with a desire to evolve, and at maximum, it’s the sound of a true legend at play.