Squarepusher – ‘Kammerkonzert’ album review: orchestral experiments reward the patient
With every record, Warp Records veteran Squarepusher is always different, always the same. Nothing’s changed for the 21st album Kammerkonzert, another hectic exercise in gleaning the sparking frissons between the organic and electronic.
The Skinny: With every album, Warp Records veteran Squarepusher is always different, always the same. Nothing’s changed for 21st LP effort Kammerkonzert, another hectic exercise in gleaning the sparking frissons between the organic and electronic.
It’s an anchorage that sees Tom Jenkinson reach for a disparate terrain of instrumental flavours across his 30-odd-year career. Go Plastic’s haunted drum and bass, Music Is Rotted One Note’s skittish jazz fusion, or the LED funk of his Shobaleader One alias, all see Squarepusher chart such diverse courses with that chemical reactive, wriggling forms captivatingly wavering on the edge of inhuman.
Such long-held creative ambitions sit teeming within Kammerkonzert. German for “Chamber Concert”, Squarepusher’s latest venture sees him wade into a palette of orchestral flourish, electroacoustic experiments, and a spike of that old jazz fluidity, grabbing at that obsessed upon intersection of composer and processor. An aural gamut is run. Languid downbeat ripples can swiftly surge into volcanic blasts of chamber incongruity, Kammerkonzert never staying put in one sonic realm for too long.
The busyness of Squarepusher’s arrangements makes for a jarring listen. Operating like a conductor of hard-bop electronica, Kammerkonzert’s whirlwind of granular mathematics can spiral to impregnable heights. ‘K1 Advance’ or ‘K4 Fairlands’ zaps the patience, desperate for something to hold on to as the micro-spliced fragmentations cascading haphazardly out of the speakers begin to exhaust.
But, with some furrowed brow and a little chin-stroking, Kammerkonzert’s merits do begin to shine. ‘K9 Headquarters’ wanders an enchanting landscape of cavernous percussion and pulsing synths that gel and mingle together with dramatic alchemy. Elsewhere, the more contemplative breaks of ambient space like ‘K9 Fremantle’ or the album’s closing ‘K14 Welbeck’ show how Jenkinson can coax stirring peaks from austerity when he feels like it.
Balancing in that fraught, precarious centre of electronic erraticity, Kammerkonzert marks another intriguing document of Squarepusher’s immersion into the experimental plane that sees the Warp Hall of Famer both venerate and subvert the classical world with beguiling results.
Standout Track: ‘K6 Headquarters’
The Verdict: While carrying over his old age penchants for crushing complexities and terse minimalism, Squarepusher shows with Kammerkonzert that even 21 albums in, Jenkinson is still an artist well worth mustering the energy for to uncover those flashes of electronic ingenuity.
Release date: April 10th, 2026 | Producer: Tom Jenkinson | Label: Warp Records
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