SQUAREPUSHER - Kammerkonzert

There are visionary concepts and risky experiments. It's hard to say exactly where “Kammerkonzert” fits. Thomas Jenkinson has spent thirty years as the master of odd time signatures, heir to Jaco Pastorius reborn as an electronic guru moving at schizophrenic speed. Here, though, the synthesizers all but vanish: in their place stands a chamber-music virtual ensemble, conceived and performed entirely by him, without ever calling in a real orchestra.

The result sounds like cerebral jazz fusion, almost rock-in-opposition: within an intricate web of irregular time signatures, it offers something akin to Zappa records or Ornette Coleman's “Skies Of America”, filtered through IDM and drill and bass. The constant modal shifts are handled with impressive mastery, and the fourteen pieces run through tangled moods and varying BPMs, from hushed restraint to mystic fury, steering clear of any loop or repetition. The arsenal of “Feed Me Weird Things” is simply paired here with a classical lineup, which heightens its estranging, almost uncanny valley effect, echoing the breakcore of Venetian Snares' “Rossz Csillag Alatt Született”.

This isn't so much inspired chaos as a declaration of entropy that isn't always in focus, and the record occasionally tips over into the overly cerebral. Whether you find it a tough listen or not (spoiler: sometimes it is), the ambition here is real and the technical command beyond question. Truly magnetic moments are few, with “K10 Terminus” chief among them, but as a whole the project holds together as an experiment consistent with a career that has never sought compromise. We appreciate both the attempt and the ambition.