Squarepusher's Spirit of Adventure

Even among the most avid electronica addicts, the music of Squarepusher (a.k.a. Tom Jenkinson), the 26-year-old DJ prodigy from England, can be described as nothing short of epic.

The reason Squarepusher's original compositions -- heavy with noteworthy beats, samples, scratches and improvised instrumentation -- are thought to be the next wave in electronic sounds is because they are thought-provoking and musical, unlike much of the redundant and boring sounds which give the genre a negative reputation.

"I just do what I do; I do think if I compared what I do to what other people do, I do think that my stuff is and will be historically important music," he said. "But I don't care, that's not my aim. My aim is just to do stuff to carry on the spirit of adventure that I've had since I was a kid. When that runs out, then I'll pack it in. For me, music has been the one continuum. It's been the part of my life, which has remained solid. Music is the best part of my life."

Squarepusher has spent years behind a turntable and his work is a product derived from a need to make music for one simple reason: to continue with his experimentation of a craft that defines his life.

"I can't describe what I do musically; it just sort of answers the question for me," he said. "I do what I do because if I didn't, I just wouldn't be a person. What I'm trying to do is create a five-second or a 10-minute epic to provoke some chain reaction of thought. Maybe it's futile, but what else can I do?"

Squarepusher, who currently lives in East London, is now in the U.S. for his first seven-date tour this month promoting his latest album, "Go Plastic" (Warp Records).

"I like gigs because for a fraction of time you see people who are really banging to what you're doing," he said. "On the other hand, you waste however many months that you are on the road, and you can't make any new tracks. So you're shooting yourself one way in order to benefit the other."

The work samples music from a wide array of genres, including jazz and hip-hop with drum and bass beats, along with interestingly arranged instrumentation.

Squarepusher set out to create the most contrived and fake music he could with this album, hence the title, and succeeded at doing so.

"The one thing that distinguishes 'Go Plastic' from anything else I've done is that it's done using an entirely new setup," he said. "I'm now using a lot more modern equipment. Up until this record, I was using what I would say was outdated, old-fashioned equipment, but I wanted to get the most I could from it. I have a really emotional relationship with technology. Even if I've had this old drum machine for five years, I can't retire that drum machine until I feel like I've done everything with it. It's crazy, but that's the way my mind works."

Squarepusher, who's thought to be a recluse of sorts, has been around music ever since he can remember. As a kid, he recalled listening to Motown, soul and pop music his father would play on one of the many old radios he liked to collect. He first picked up an instrument, the bass, at the age of 10 and recorded his first electronic project at 12 by playing bass lines along a prerecorded drumbeat.

"It's the earliest incarnation of what I was doing now to this day," he said. "I suppose it's been a relatively smooth transition really, because music is so familiar to me. It's not like I suddenly got into it when I was a teen-ager. I think a lot of people do that. They suddenly take an interest in it and most start playing music when they are 16 or whatever. But it's literally just been there all my life."

Squarepusher's Warp Records' discography began with the 1996 debut album "Feed Me Weird Things" with the help of Richard James of Aphex Twin who expressed an interest in Jenkinson after hearing his earlier work.

Jenkinson followed up "Feed Me Weird Things" with his 1998 work entitled "Music is Rotted One Note" that contains a vibe reminiscent to the work of Miles Davis in the 1970s where Jenkinson is able to show off his chops on the upright bass. In 1999, Squarepusher then released "Selection Sixteen" which serves as an abstract interpretation of both the conscious and subconscious thoughts floating around in Jenkinson's head.

"I'm basically into contrast and music is a holistic thing for me," he added. "It has to cover all bases. In that sense I love music that covers all those different things. I have urges for different things. I have urges that nobody else really satisfies, so I have to do everything that I want to hear within my own stuff."