Kammerkonzert translates into English as ‘chamber concert’, typically compositions performed by a small number of players. But how small is small? In this case, it’s just one hugely impressive performer – Squarepusher himself, who oversees every aspect of this wonderfully multi-faceted production.
Real name Thomas Jenkinson, Squarepusher has returned with his first album since 2024’s Dostrotime. However, Kammerkonzert is a stark departure. Drill’n’bass has been replaced with multi-layered compositions of jazz-cum-IDM-cum-orchestral essences. Currently it’s impossible to not relate the word ‘chamber’ to the triggering buzzterm ‘echo-chamber’, but in a time of complacent self-confirming trends, fads and vitality, Kammerkonzert stands confidently on its own two feet.
Kammerkonzert is cinematic, but not confined to one particular film genre. The intro track,’K1 Advance’, begins with plucky call and response phrases, as slightly off-kilter drums join the scatty symphony, creating an uncanny start to the album. Squarepusher continues to create a filmic atmosphere on ‘K5 Fremantle’, which could be a horror movie theme with its high pitched Psycho vibrato strings. ‘K9 Reliance’ too could soundtrack any big 1990s cinema car chase with its booming ascending and descending piano scales. You could even make a case for ‘K10 Terminus’ aligning with Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash</i. (2014) score.
More than anything, these tracks highlight Jenkinson’s willingness to integrate so many ingredients into his complex, imaginative sound, and the way he draws from other composers, such as Ennio Morricone. The Italian maestro also certainly inspired ‘K7 Museum’. Visions of a train chuffing through a Spaghetti Western landscape materialise while listening to this piece, concocted through a combination of a playful harpsichord and marimba accompanied by tinny drums, giving it a definite Zappa-esque feel to boot.
However, where Jenkinson really amazes is at the intersection of his classic drum’n’bass flavours and the orchestral grandiosity that centres this album. ‘K2 Central’ feels like the musical heart of the record. Beginning with some dastardly bass playing, this track feels like a breakbeat version of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Pusherman’ from the Superfly (1972) soundtrack. A protagonist’s theme, where crawling brass sections swell, joined by airy flutes over a conglomerate of both programmed and acoustic drums, all resulting in a mesmerising, funky jazz number, not dissimilar to tracks on his previous album Music is Rotted One Note (1998).
‘K4 Fairlands’ kicks off at a similar drum’n’orchestra intersection, sounding like a breakbeat ballet, before the piece breaks out into a more volatile form. Blending a string quartet with hardcore breakbeat samples is bold, but it works, and at times encompasses his last album, Dostrotime – one full of maximalist drill’n’bass flair.
As if returning more to traditionalist roots now, Kammerkonzert is cemented in the fundamentals of music creation, using orchestral music as its base camp. But of course, Jenkinson wouldn’t let you get away that easy, and as the music builds he washes his wonderful, abstract pigments all over those traditionalist forms – whilst maybe just hacking off a few musical purists along the way.
