They say that J.S. Bach was obsessed with numerology and the practice of gematria, which says that each letter of the alphabet can be assigned a number. Historians point out that, in his "Vor deinen Thron", the first part of melody has 14 notes (the numerological value of Bach's surname), and the entire melody has 41 (the numerological value of "JS Bach"). There's another Bach piece wherein he assigns specific notes to each letter of his name. I had heard it many times before discovering how it was constructed, and enjoyed it, which makes one thing clear: though this information is an interesting aspect of the piece, it's hardly an essential component of enjoying the music.

Often, when artists have constructed a manifesto or methodology for their work, they feel it's necessary for this information to be known to people so that their music can be fully understood. But there's an ongoing debate as to whether or not anyone besides the composer needs to know what's going on at the time of conception, and despite my momentary amusement when I discovered Bach's methodology, I can't say that it's ever really informed my admiration for the piece. Squarepusher mastermind Tom Jenkinson, on the other hand, might not agree with me. And I quote:

"To make a lethal attack on, say a musical standpoint, that standpoint must first be loved, understood and accommodated before it can be assailed, and this problem is exemplified with much youth culture that seeks to destroy its perceived antithetical enemy simply by contradicting it. It is not enough to behead your enemy, they must first be invited in and made to feel welcome in order to be comprehensively destroyed i.e. they must be in some way incorporated."

Do You Know Squarepusher comes with a small text file of Jenkinson's manifesto for his work-- and apparently, for anyone who would criticize his work. What this quote implies is that I, as a critic and fan, am not allowed to diss him until I have loved him first. And just to prove that he knows what he's talking about, he later goes on to say that he's "learned to see inside every musician's head because, in order to prevent myself from being fully incorporated into any musical ghetto, I have to incorporate every musical ghetto into myself." Perhaps the real question, then, is "Do You Know Yourself?" If not, have no fear, because Squarepusher does.

Well, I've got good news for Jenkinson: I have loved Squarepusher! I loved Hard Normal Daddy; I loved Big Loada; and I really loved Music is Rotted One Note. The latter was particularly enjoyable because it allowed fans to glimpse a rare "human" side of Jenkinson-- even if it was a cold, dark human. But if his above quote is any indication, the creation of that record also meant that he had loved, hated and somehow destroyed Miles Davis-- the worst I can say about it was that it was Bitches Brew without the solos. None of this is especially important when listening to his new two-disc release (blasphemy!), but if he's going to so much trouble to show me what a cannibalistic paradox he is, I figure I might as well play along.

The first disc wisely opens with the album's only worthwhile moment: the title track, which has already become a concert fave for fans. It seems to fall squarely in line with the straightforward, melodic direction introduced with 2000's "My Red Hot Car". This isn't to say Squarepusher's going pop, but that this song has more in common with late-period Kraftwerk than modern-day electronica-- it's basically a pop song decked out in electronic trickery, as opposed to clicks-and-cuts with occasional hints of melody.

On the other end of the spectrum are "Kill Robok" and "Anstromm-Feck 4". The former is comprised of progressively random pulse bursts, taking a block of code from the Autechre algorithm. There's a beat in there, but it's held together by tempo only-- the actual bass and snare accents are all over the place. Similarly, the latter song opens with a robo-voiced Jenkinson asking if I think I'm "fucking hard" (I thought he already knew!), before launching into ever-so-ordinary car-chase music.

"Mutilation Colony" begins with some ominously pretty keyboard clusters that sound oddly similar to Jenkinson's old buddy Bach. The first few minutes of this tune are a melancholy change of pace, with shimmering chords extended and stretched until their resonance dries up. After a bit of this, he raids Stockhausen's back catalog by introducing the beloved Academic Electronic Composition. Over the course of the succeeding eight minutes or so, Squarepusher abandons hyperactive IDM for a rather pedestrian noise experiment. And as for his breathy cover of "Love Will Tear Us Apart", I'm guessing Joy Division were too tough a dish to love, hate and spit out.

The second disc, titled Alive in Japan, documents a July 2001 show. Now, I can see the appeal of going to a Squarepusher show, but you don't get quite the same experience in your living room. The biggest thrill here, beyond hearing stuff from Go Plastic! and Do You Know Squarepusher with acoustic interference, is his periodic interjections of "let's hear some fucking noise!" or "gimme some fucking noise!!" Were Jenkinson to issue this performance as a standalone release, I imagine Warp would have had no interest in it.

In the end, reading "Tom's Manifesto" probably isn't going to alter anyone's perception of Do You Know Squarepusher. Just like Bach, Jenkinson's best stuff gets by not on his calculated pre-production or any meta-cognitive powers of enlightenment, but because on some level, it connects with other people. By the same token, this set is disappointing not because I don't understand his methodology, but because the results simply aren't terribly engaging.

-Dominique Leone, October 1st, 2002