Squarepusher: Upending Expectations Of Electronic Dance Music (Archives)

Squarepusher is the nom de disque of Tom Jenkinson, who makes electronic dance music. EDM is associated with a relentless four-on-the-floor dance beat; it's loud and brightly colored and definitely part of the pop realm. Squarepusher, on the other hand, makes music that rides over a skittish, often nervous set of rhythms; his music may be somewhere on the fringes of pop, but it’s closer to the arty outsider known as Aphex Twin than it is to Tiesto or Calvin Harris or any of the other superstar dance DJs. Squarepusher did a recent project with musical robots, but his own music has somehow maintained an organic quality, a sense of playability rare in the world of laptop-based music. Hear Squarepusher perform several of his recent works in the Soundcheck studio.