Track Listing

1. My Red Hot Car
2. Boneville Occident
3. Go Spastic
4. Metteng Excuske V.1.2
5. Exploding Psychology
6. I Wish I Could Talk
7. Greenways Trajectory
8. Tommib
9. My F**King Sound
10. Plaistow Flex Out

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12543 in Music
• Released on: 2001-06-25
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Go Plastic is a very welcome return to Tom Jenkinson's roots. After a lengthy hiatus from the mongrel take on jungle with which Squarepusher made his name--time he spent dallying in the distant realms of instrumental jazz and music concrete, collected best on the difficult but ultimately rewarding Music Is Rotted One Note. Such is this man's genius for deconstructing music to the basest levels and then mischievously piecing it back together in a devilishly mutated form. However, it's not always easy to see exactly where each individual root lies; opening single "My Red Hot Car" pilfers its whip-crack snare-snap straight from the record box of the UK garage crew, but before long, Jenkinson is freezing the melodies into hard slabs of distortion and hurling them back as craggy percussive junglist crashes. "The Exploding Psychology" proves he's still got a passion for the impossibly complex, but the grand charm of Squarepusher is that he's always approached the most experimental musical forms without feeling like he has to clot the fluidity of his music into dry scientific endeavor. This might be music made by a probable Mensa candidate, but a quick listen to the deranged, glitch-ridden alien jungle-hop of "Go! Spastic" should tell you everything you need to know; namely, that Go Plastic is Squarepusher's most consistently enjoyable record yet. --Louis Pattison

Customer Reviews

Gnomes Triumphant
If, like me, you are not a hardcore electronica fan and `Go Plastic' is your first taste of Squarepusher, you might be as surprised as I was by what is on offer here.

The opener deserves a special mention because it is an instantly catchy and enjoyable garage-two step pastiche, which by the end becomes a classic in its own right. However, on initial listens, the rest of the CD sounds merely like a collage of bass licks, manic bursts of beats, odd noises and samples, rather like a gang of evil gnomes let loose in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

There is enough to keep you interested, though, and perseverance really pays off. After a while the listener is enthralled by the invention and variety on display, from the extreme noise assault of `Greenways Trajectory', which hits you with increasingly high-pitched tonal shrieks, to the blessed-out synth interlude of `Tommb' which would not be out of place on a Boards of Canada CD. At the risk of lapsing into cliché, you really do hear something new on each listen.

The CD works at its best when threads of mischievous melody emerge from the chaos and worm their way into your brain, for example the sinuous hook on `The Exploding Psychology' and the pounding rhythm of `I Wish You Could Talk'.

In occasional places `Go Plastic' is a trial to listen to, such as during `Go! Spastic' which never really resolves itself into anything memorable, but on the whole this is a thrilling listen ablaze with remarkable creativity and verve. Recommended.

He is the daddy
Depending on your view, this is either a regression to tried-and-tested drill 'n' bass, or an ascension to the greatest sonic madness ever created. I conform to the latter view.

The album kicks off with a twisted bit of two-step garage, which eventually breaks down into a cacophony of chopped up breaks and snare-rushes, over Squarepusher's trademark bass-playing. Brilliant.

Then we move onto a couple of tracks of magnificent blistering drill 'n' bass in the form of Boneville Occident and Go Spastic. There is a brief interlude of ambient noises before the superlative garage-drill 'n' bass hybrid of The Exploding Psychology. Darned funky.

Next up, Squarepusher drops some classic drum 'n' bass in the form of I Wish You Could Talk. This is probably the easiest track to get into on the album, but loses nothing over time.

Now we hit the heavy stuff. Greenways Trajectory and My F****** Sound are pure sonic assaults, with the ambience of Tomnib providing the briefest of respites between them. This is probably the best section of the album, which is some achievement given the quality that runs throughout.

We end with Plaistow Flex Out - 4 minutes of seedy grooves that bring the album to its close. 48 minutes of drill 'n' bass perfection. This is one of my top 10 albums of all time.

Intensely progressive but likeable electronica.
What can I say? This is what electronica should be. Tom has reached an all time high with this album. Building up to it from his other full lengths, this has been the most accessible, yet at the same time his most experimental. If you listen to the album it progresses through, slowly moving away from rhythm and melody towards harsher sounds, arhythmical and almost atonal; it then returns ro his jazz roots briefly (although undertones can always be heard) before climaxing and drifting away again into such intense and complex sequencing that could only be the work of one person. The first time I listened to this I totally hated the more experimental tracks, the lack of consistent loops, the random sounds, the slow build ups of sound towards seemingly irrelevant points. Having listened to this again and again it seems to me that the track which originally drew me to it was actually the joke of the album (you know which one I mean). Tom was trying to lure unsuspecting garage/2step fans to listen to something that they would never in their right minds have ever picked up had they known what was under the cover. Not that he doesn't deny the roots of some of this music, his drum and bass and techno listening seeps in throughout the cd. On further listening the cd seems to work itself into such a frenzy of rhythm that it needs to calm down, and ends on a sombre note that finishes like the last movement of a symphony. In fact I relate Tom's work more and more to the influence of modern composers, for through the atonal elements there creeps a sense of structure that has been well planned beforehand. Look out for anything Tom does, I can guarantee that even if it doesn't please you, it will open your mind.