#hard normal daddy

Squarepusher’s second album - his first for his current label, Warp - is dependent on something best described not as complexity but controlled chaos. This is music that is simultaneously rigid and robotic, and yet falling apart at the seams. There’s rarely a moment in the record, released in 1997, that isn’t breathtakingly relentless in pace and attitude. Hard Normal Daddy, when viewed in the context of Squarepusher’s (vastly inconsistent) discography, is very easily pigeonholed as a transitional album: stuck between Feed Me Weird Things’ dark, obscure (albeit occasionally funky) drum-and-bass or Music Is Rotted One Note’s sloppy, experimental, electronic jazz fusion. Such a period is easily viewed when comparing two tracks from HND - Chin Hippy and Papalon are next to each other in the track listing and yet contrast the two central sounds on the album perfectly, as if one is the ying to the other’s yang (and 500 other metaphors to demonstrate juxtaposition, in stores now). Chin Hippy sputters and spurts in and out of an aggressive, almost atonal existence. It’s unquestionably electronic, as if such a thing needed to be clarified for an artist labelled as IDM so often.

...Well, actually, it does. This is Squarepusher. His musical intent does not begin and end at electronic music, and Papalon demonstrates this magnificently. The song could hardly be called an acoustic effort, not with smooth, jazzy electronic pianos surrounding the already synth-laden track, but they circle hectic, brushed drums and horns that glide effortlessly between notes, like an ethereal presence. As Papalon’s eight minutes quickly run out, the song gradually becomes slower and slower, but loses none of its intensity; a gradual buildup of energy erupts towards the end of the second half of the piece, leaving a wonderful crescendo in its wake. 

These two tracks are merely two extremities. The rest of the album combines the two to make what was at the time a startlingly innovative mixture that no other musician would’ve likely thought of without Tom Jenkinson’s guidance. Beep Street uses a mysterious, ambient-leaning keyboard melody over jazzy, sickeningly quick drums. (The snare resembles an electric drill at points.) E8 Boogie is an early demonstration of Jenkinson’s ridiculous amount of talent on the bass guitar, coupled with a irresistible, funky, wahing lead. The whole album wavers between its musical identities, and the musical identities of its creator, and while he would go on to explore his jazz, funk and electronic interests in later projects, this remains the most compelling and engaging fusion of all three. Though the Richard D James Album predates HND, Squarepusher’s influence upon the former (and Aphex Twin’s forthcoming glitch/drill-and-bass material in Drukqs and other projects) is obvious once you have a knowledge of both artists’ material. The two shared a lot of musical genetics, and collaborated heavily in the development of their ideas and musical intentions. By fusing jazz and the (at the time) barely-emerging drill-and-bass genres, Squarepusher created an obscure, modern classic that is undeniably intriguing, even if it’s not to your taste. Give it a listen if you haven’t already, because I like this album.

FAVOURITE TRACKS: PAPALON, BEEP STREET

FURTHER LISTENING:

Music Is Rotted One Note was Squarepusher’s next album after Hard Normal Daddy, and went completely nuts. Tom Jenkinson threw structure out of the window and instead created an obtuse jazz-fusion suite. Give it a go if you like this and you want to be challenged.

Squarepusher released several projects in 1997, but the most remembered is probably the Big Loada EP. This EP contains his biggest hit, Come On My Selector; Chris Cunningham made a video for the song in 1998. 

The compilation Burningn'n Tree was released a few months after Hard Normal Daddy.

Squarepusher never quite made it back up to the standards of his 1996-1998 period, in my opinion. That isn’t to say he didn’t make any other good projects - Go Plastic contains many of his greatest hits and Ultravisitor is considered by many to be a great album - but they aren’t classics in the same way his releases around that time are now.

Next post: a singer-songwriter’s most ominous and apocalyptic work to date.