Squarepusher returns with a brand new project, Shobaleader One – and Q is premiering its first material from below, Squarepusher Theme (with live dates following on 6 May Gorilla in Manchester and London’s Islington Assembly Hall on 8 May). So why is this different from Squarepusher? Why has he named it after Squarepusher? The man himself explains…
Shobaleader One – Why?
I got fed up with being in bands when I was a teenager. The whole format seemed stricken with creative inertia and conservatism. And the idea of negotiating with other people in order to get music made seemed like a massive waste of time when there was the option of doing it all with electronics. Even if using electronics meant that certain musical options were discarded, that seemed a fair price to pay. Albums such as Hard Normal Daddy (1997) and Music Is Rotted One Note (1998) represent my attempts to narrow the gap between what a band could do and the standard conception of what was possible with electronics – I tried to make electronics sound like an insane band. But I reckon since then electronic music has itself become well acquainted with inertia and conservatism (and possibly also smarminess and tepidity).
Software companies, partly in order to further their business aims, have made it so easy to make electronic music that the format in general is beginning to assume a troubling air of painting-by-numbers pointlessness. I tried to combat that by making Damogen Furies (2015) as close to a musical flamethrower as can be mustered in 1s and 0s, but right now I feel that the battle must be continued outside of the box. It’s time to make a band sound like an insane band. Enter Shobaleader One…
Squarepusher@SQUAREPUSHER
For more head to Squarepusher.net.
