Selection Sixteen is Squarepusher’s 4th album and part of a glut of pusher material that was released in 1999, along with Music is Rotted One Note and the Budakan Mindphone and Maximum Priest EPs. Much like most of his previous works, it features live instruments and strong jazz influences, as well as pieces heavily driven by electronic breakbeats, and in particular this album more predominantly features the Roland 303 bass synth, most typically known for its use in acid house.
As the name suggests, Selection Sixteen comprises 16 tracks, which also implies to me that Squarepusher couldn’t think of a title for this album. Several of the pieces are short interludes, mostly jazz inspired experimental passages that help string together the more substantial tracks, and a couple tacked on the end are labelled as remixes, including a one credited to Ceephax, the alias of Andy Jenkinson, Squarepusher’s brother. Though it should be mentioned he has an extensive discography, is a beloved live performer with an illustrious career in his own right.
It’s this kind of flung together feeling that makes Selection Sixteen a bit of a black sheep in Squarepusher’s discography. It’s not an album I ever purchased, although full disclosure I did listen to a lot of mp3s acquired through file sharing platforms back in the day, so I did have a ripped and burned copy, but it was not an album that ever made it into heavy rotation.
Coming into this review, I was ready to practically write off Selection Sixteen as a collection of half baked ideas, knocked together from the cutting room floor of other albums. It always felt to me like a compilation, which record companies would often put out when a band or artist was getting big and they wanted to cash in on some “previously unreleased “ material. But having played it quite a few times recently, I’ve been reminded a) how there’s a few really decent tracks on here and b) how it actually does, if not flow as well as some other albums, it does at least have its own identity and feel to it.
The jazz interludes create space for Tom to lay down his breakbeat workouts and give them some breathing room. Those pieces very much feel like products of the same sessions that birthed Music is Rotted One Note, and part of me wonders if this album was rushed out to try and win back the portion of the fanbase who’d been completely turned off by that record, which being an album of experimental jazz fusion was a complete left-turn at the time, given Squarepusher had been making a name for himself as an experimental jungle/drill’n’bass artist, albeit with jazz influences.
Or what’s more likely, is this was simply a very prolific time for Jenkinson and Warp were more than happy to put out another album’s worth of material. So let’s get into the details.
My favourite track on the record is Dedicated Loop. Tom takes things down from his usual breathless tempo of 180 bpm, down to about 140, with a very tasty breakbeat loop which almost has a bit of a UK Garage feel to it. The 303 comes to the fore with a lovely squelchy driving riff – it’s an iconic sound that refuses to get old (people are still rinsing it now, 3.5 decades on from the advent of acid house), so those elements alone would make a decent track.
But it might be here we see Tom making first forays into what I’d call his cosmic melodic style. I’ve spoken before about how his melodies, especially in his 90s phase, so often evoked suburbia and the mundane everyday world of the semi urban environment, with a hefty dose of nostalgia. Check out my video on Hard Normal Daddy for more on that. But here, Tom takes things up into outer space with this soaring synth line, floating high above the mix which heavily calls to mind flying through the stars at Warp speed. This is a realm he’ll come back to many times over his career, think tracks like Welcome to Europe or Tetra-sync.
Tomorrow World is probably the best loved track from Selection Sixteen judging by the number of streams anyway. Not as spacey as Dedicated Loop but with a strong sci-fi feel albeit a kitsch kind of retro sci-fi. I picture Tomorrow World like an illustration from a 1970s school textbook, flying cars and jetpacks flitting around some shiny city composed of towering cuboid buildings. The melody really gets in your head, and Tom balances his tendency for mania by keeping the beat restrained rather than taking it down some jazz-inspired meandering journey.
Snake Pass is another cut built around a buzzing 303 line, and could almost be classed as hard techno or acid techno, given the fairly straight four to floor. It’s not a typical Squarepusher sound but does have this cool vibe of low-level menace and suppressed tension in the pacey beat and 303 line, which rather than going into a freestyle melody just drives the rhythm of the track.
Much like Chin Hippy on Hard Normal Daddy, or North Circular on Feed Me Weird Things, Mind Rubbers is the token ‘hectic’ track, where Tom indulges his penchant, and flexes his considerable skill, in chopping and rearranging breakbeats. Mind Rubbers is less memorable or exciting than either of those other tracks, as it is than any of the later variations on this theme, Anstromm Feck-4, The Modern Bass Guitar, etc. Here it feels like he’s going through the motions a little bit and it’s just been included for the sake of it.
If Selection Sixteen can be said to have a centerpiece then it would be Schizm Track #1, a stumbling downtempo jam that incorporates what sounds like a Roland 909 drum machine, or similar piece of old school kit, bass guitar through some kind of filter, 303 acid bass and a sample of Kool Keith (member of old school hip-hop group, Ultramagnetic MCs). The dank electronic meets jazz vibe could have fit in very well on Feed Me Weird Things. The effects Jenkinson applies to some of the drum hits result in some very harsh high pitched sounds, which just make it a bit of a chore to listen to. More enjoyable is Schizm Track #2 mix, tacked onto the end – whether it bears any relation apart from a title is not apparent – another acid breakbeat cut. Kind of makes me wish Squarepusher could have just an album of straight up acid breakbeat though to be fair I guess it was very similar to the sound Ceephax was working in.
The Ceephax mix, just to mention it quickly, is more experimental and moody than the more hyper day-glo sound he was more associated with at the time. Layers of drum breaks are piled atop one another while pulsing synths build menacingly until a blooping melodic line finally breaks through, before being subsumed again by cascades of percussion. More than anything, it seems to be an impressive exercise in keeping God knows how many drum machines synced together.
Selection Sixteen is never going to be my favourite Squarepusher album, as it just doesn’t have that uncanny spark of dare I say it, “genius” running through it, like so many of his other releases do. But it does see him trying out a slightly different sound, and taking a less self-consciously serious stance than he usually does – which you can only applaud. If it happens to be your favourite Squarepushher album then I’d love to hear it, likewise if you wanna disagree or agree with my opinions then stick it in the comments section.
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