Classic Album | Filter

Squarepusher Theme

“The guitar chords were sampled from an Applause acoustic guitar that I’d had since I was 11. And this was the first piece I recorded using the Fostex M80 8-track, which I think gives the solos a tangible sense of liberation from the gruelling live-to-DAT process.

“The bass solos were performed on my Ibanez Roadstar II bass which I had bought at the age of 14 and was my mainstay instrument right up into this period and beyond.

“This was also an early example of trying to programme drums in a way that blurred the hallmarks of live drumming and breakbeats, trying to cultivate an ambiguous region between the two where the respective distinctions fall away.”

Tundra

“I wanted to hear a hardstep track that was as emotive as it was hard. I loved all the jungle of he time. It was a big inspiration, and an exciting period of music. I wanted to hear the emotive side of it expanded.

“I wanted to explore material that was harmonically elaborate, and see how that could be integrated into that hard breakbeat framework. That intention reaches right back into the Stereotype EP and before.

“The ‘cello’ sound was made by rubbing a plectrum on a bass guitar string. I was attempting to emulate the fast bowing vibrato of a violin family instrument. As you hear the pitch changing of the note you can hear the plectrum scraping slowing down and speeding up.”

The Swifty

“This was recorded back in the days when I didn’t have access to a multi-track. So, there’s live bass on that track playing song-sequenced material. It was done like a live take, all in one go, playing the bassline as well as running the sequenced material and recording it all onto 2-track, to a DAT machine.