Customer Reviews

Feed Me Weird Things

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this album in 1996 and instantly warmed to it. It was the first time I had heard drum 'n' bass warped so furiously into many different forms. Each track here is a different mood or style. 'North Circular' is intense and minimalist, 'Squarepusher Theme' is jazzy and funky, 'Tundra' and 'Theme from Ernest Borgnine' are beautifully melancholy, and 'Smedley's melody' is insanely fast and features the sound of a sheep being catapulted! The most amazing thing is Tom's fretless bass playing which features on most of the tracks, so deft and masterful. There is a wealth of ideas on this album which are so well executed it is a joy to listen to. If you are interested in Squarepusher and are wondering which of his records to buy, get this one. It's unlike anything else you'll ever hear and in my opinion the later Squarepusher albums do not gel quite as well.

Feed Me Weird Things is probably the best all-around Squarepusher album there is. Musically it's the most diverse thing Jenkinson's done; there's a lot of jazz influence here, as with his other work, but there's also quite a bit of percussive-focused tracks, like "Dimotane Co." and the amazing "North Circular." "Theme to Ernest Borgnine" is simply gorgeous, and "Squarepusher Theme" is probably my favorite Squarepusher track, featuring some incredible fretless bass soloing (played live by Jenkinson himself) along with the trademark Squarepusher breakbeats. Feed Me Weird Things is an excellent introduction to Squarepusher, as it covers a lot of ground - there's something for everyone on this disc. Recommended.

This is the one. The one album which defied everything and existed without peers. From the shockingly detailed structure of the funk-jazz influenced opening track, straight onto tundra (only fsol's my-kingdom from the jan 97 broadcast comes close for me), onto the awe of Dimotane Co and the Theme From Ernest Borgnine. Every track stands on it's own feet, and offers something new and fresh to the listener. Tom - you own me. In a sentence, the electronica revolution hit a heady milestone here, rephresh yourself ;)

Steve Loftis

Tom Jenkinson is so far out of drum n' bass. So it uses kinda weird production techniques and likes to play bass at, well, 400 bpm. But he's too accomplished of a jazz musician.... and too much of a cerebral freak.... to fit so keenly into the genre as some people expect.

This is a great album. It is one of the few classics of whatever genre you want to try to fit it into. Is it jazz? Yes, though not as much as 'Music is One Rotted Note'. Is it drum n' bass? Eh, it doesn't sound like Cujo or Plug or even Aphex Twin. It's got to be taken on its own level. And it's something that you have to grow into. If you give it time and listen to it for IT and not as some kinda archetype derived off of some other kind of music, it's almost holy.....

Electronic heads and computer geeks regard this as something of a classic in the experimental techno vein! Pointless genre pigeonholes be damned, this is one tight LP! Squarepusher (Tom Jenkinson) works along the lines of Aphex Twin or u-ziq, but adds some astonishing live bass work, often to drum breaks skittering out of control at 200 beats a minute. "Feed Me Weird Things" runs the gamut from an intoxicating jazz/drum n' bass hybrid, to hard-as-nails tribal shmack, through truly bizarre comedy bits including countrified samples of barnyard animals, more weird stuff like what sound like church organ samples, and near the close throws in some AWESOME sci-fi melodies along with great squelchy acid bits. A real epic of an album, and one of the best techno LPs of the 90s, IMHO. Jenkinson literally pushes a round peg into a square hole, or whatever!

While DJs were busy squabbling over the distinction between "intelligent" drum-n-bass and "stupid" floor-fodder, 21-year-old Tom Jenkinson dropped "Squarepusher Theme" and bombed all other practitioners of the breakbeat science back to the Stone Age. This virtually unknown Cornwall resident had rewritten the rulebook for both the "drum" and "bass" factors of the popular dancehall equation. Jenkinson's supremely sweet, funky, and unabashedly bravado fretless chops likened him to nimble-fingered fusioneer Jaco Pastorius; his breathlessly dynamic and acrobatic rhythms bespoke a singular imagination. Squarepusher is freakishly inventive,by turns moody ("Tundra," "Goodnight Jade," "U.F.O.s Over Leytonstone"), manic ("North Circular," "The Swifty","Windscale 2"), mad as a March hare ("Dimotane Co," the laugh-out-loud funny "Smedley's Melody," "Future Gibbon"), and flat-out brilliant ("Kodack"). On "Theme From Ernest Borgnine," Jenkinson cribs melodies from µ-Ziq and the Aphex Twin (whose Rephlex label issued FEED ME WIERD THINGS) and betrays his electronica roots. But Squarepusher's dazzling breaks-work is utterly without precedent. The impact of his upheaval of drum-n-bass convention had dulled slightly by the time of this album's release. Too many (other people) had run with his formula in every direction but originality. Nonetheless, this remains an astonishing record,perhaps the pinnacle of jazzed-up, schizoid outsider drum-n-bass.

Between his somewhat dancy beats and his hardcore jazz breakdowns this has got to one of the best cd's that i have ever heard. This cd, if you read on the back, was soley responsible for the Richard D. James Album. Aphext Twin gave all the credit to Tom Jenkinson and then latter, Aphex Twin got all the credit for IDM. (...) I don't think anyone could touch Tom's style. Allot of people have recreated what Aphex Twin has done. Tom Jenkinson is by far the best bass player of my generation (and thats with Les Claypool taken into consideration). Buy this cd for yourself, your grandmother, your mailman. Everyone should have it.

Squarepusher is the one that started if for me. Four or Five years ago I came upon my brothers Squarepusher CD he had left in the bathroom cd player. WOWWWW! I was ignorant of what IDM music is, and still loved it, and I have to say, that albums like this only get better and better as one becomes more aware of good electronic music. Albums contains the quinntessential "Tundra" among others. Also #1, 3, 5, 9, etc. etc. etc. See when one listens to Squarepusher, often only a few songs are atttractive, yet as the knowledge of the ablum unfolds, all Jenkinson's true beauty is exposed. Comes in a tough tie for first in his productions along with "Burningn' Tree" as two FLaWLESS albums. Buy it and just keep listening, it will come!

I would like to tell the general public that their is an way to ease yourself into the intense, dense, complex world of Tom Jenkinson's Squarepusher. Sadly there is none. From there, Squarepusher's music is something that you like or you don't. Sure it takes some time to get past the opaquness of his work(some songs take some getting used to while others are almost immediately accessible), but if you can "get it", Jenkinson's "music" is some of them most rewarding IDM you can get into. That being said, Feed Me Weird Things is probably the best place to start for people with an itching to try Squarepusher.

First off, I have to say that Jenkinson makes some of the most detailed and intricate IDM this side of Autechre or Aphex Twin. Layers upon layers of manically crafted drum machines, basslines, and synths are assembled together richly and compellingly. But what separates SP from most artists of this ilk is the light-fast speed of which all of this is done at. Even its more meditated moments, FMWT never sits still for an instant, creating a difficult but involving listen. For what its worth you can never say what Jenkinson does it boring. What I find positivily fascinating is that he samples his own playing (and form the live instrumentation of Music is Rotted One Note, he is truly gifted musician), something really amazing. Another thing that seperates his debut from his later works is that it's a full pallet of what the man is capable of doing. Switching from noise, to ambient, to intense drill and bass, to break beat, even to jazz/fusion, sometimes all one track is truly amazing to listen to. However if there is one pitfall of this CD is that it feels more like a collection of songs rather then a complete work which keeps it from being the quality of Hard Normal Daddy, Music is One Note Rotted and Go Plasitc (which are all postitively brilliant by the way).

It would seem as though my praise for Jenkinson is non-ending so you would think that Squarepusher has rapidly become my new favorite artist. And while I love his work, I cannot say that I'm his biggest fan. But on the whole, I dare you to find an artist today that makes music as fasinating as Squarepusher. Its so different from everything else that it just begs to be listened to. Its certainly his most musical based work(some his latter work ventures in to pure noise territory), that alone makes it probably his most accessible work. If Squarepusher could ever be considered accessible....

I really enjoyed this album and would recommend it to anyone interested in Squarepusher. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
DEFINITELY DO NOT PAY MORE THAN $13-17 FOR IT THOUGH! THIS IS NOT A RARE ALBUM AND IS NOT HARD TO FIND AS THIS SELLER CLAIMS!!!