Album Review: Squarepusher - Be Up A Hello

As trends in dance music increasingly move towards pie-eyed nostalgia, it seems inevitable that some of the most forward-thinking artists of the '90s are crawling back towards their adrenaline-addled roots. 

For Tom "Squarepusher" Jenkinson, Be Up A Hello marks a return to comparatively familiar territory after scoring a kids’ TV show and collaborating on an album of organ music. For this project, Jenkinson used nothing but the vintage analogue equipment he developed his sound with in the early '90s – including his 8-bit Commodore VIC-20 – which goes to prove that in the 2020s, it's still possible to make music with just about anything.

While the album kicks off with the unashamedly gleeful Oberlove, things become progressively darker. Nervelevers is galvanising in its focus before the acidic post-rave witchery of Vortrack takes hold and the 303s of Terminal Slam perforate the frontal cortex like sewing machines. Much of this album won't sound particularly radical to long-term fans, but there are moments that few other producers could conceptualise, let alone accomplish. It only goes to show that even when Squarepusher's facing backwards, the rest of the world is struggling to keep up.