SQUAREPUSHER

SQUAREPUSHER/PARANOID LONDON/SCALPING AT THE ROUNDHOUSE, CAMDEN – 29/10/21

Originally there were supposed to be four of us going tonight but then, one by one, people starting dropping off. Wife thought the universe was trying to tell us not to go. She thought the universe was conspiring against us. “Think of all the things that have happened to stop people going. Andy’s auntie died. Sam’s started getting migraines again for the first time in decades. River’s got tonsillitis.” She thought about it for a second. “I think it’s going to be cancelled,” she concluded. “Squarepusher’s going to get Covid.” 

And so I’m on my own, which is fine. 

I’ve never been to the Roundhouse so early or seen it so empty. I buy a ginger beer and head straight to the front. 

Early and empty

SCALPING start with a crash and things don’t really improve. It’s sort of rave metal migraine music. It’s like post-rock played by weightlifters. It’s not much fun as far as I can see, though some optimistic people are dancing along and seem to be having a nice enough time. It’s just too blokey and macho for me, I’m afraid. The synth player has far bigger muscles than he needs to push buttons and twiddle knobs and the drummer just seems to be blindly flailing his arms around. They remind me of the kind of band I imagine you might stumble across in a dingy bar in Portugal, even though I’ve never been to a dingy bar in Portugal, or Portugal at all for that matter. At least I don’t think I have. It’s the only time I’ve ever wished I had earplugs at a gig. 

Just not my cup of tea, I'm afraid

PARANOID LONDON aren’t much better. There are these two middle aged blokes nodding their heads like they think they’ve got the best beats in town, while behind them another bloke speaks indecipherably into a microphone. The two middle aged men stare intently at laptop screens and I wonder what they’re doing. Every so often one of them stops to drink from a bottle of beer or take a picture of the crowd and I realise, sadly, that they’re not really doing very much at all. I’m sorry to say the music does nothing for me. I’m sure it’s just me. Other people seem to be enjoying themselves perfectly well. I think it’s the kind of music you need to take drugs to enjoy. It’s music to dance to, maybe, not music to listen to. And I’m a listener, not a dancer. The truth is I just don’t want to dance. I want to listen.

Not doing much

And then another bloke starts DJing, playing this hard, kind of faceless music. It’s becoming a bit of an endurance test this. I don’t like this music. There might have been a time when I might have done, but it’s not now. I like gentler things now, nicer things, warmer things. This gig needs some women, I think. It’s too blokey. So many blokes. Everyone’s a bloke. 

Arriving onstage like the head monk at a sort of techno monastery, and armed with a six-string bass guitar – four or five strings could never contain all those fingers – SQUAREPUSHER operates in a permanent state of sensory overload. It’s an onslaught of light and sound, most of which is, to my ears, battered and bruised as they are, completely unrecognisable from his recent recorded output. 

The head monk

It’s not until about an hour into the set that he plays a song I can name. It’s Oberlove from his recent album. “I love this song,” shouts a man behind me. Me too, I think. It’s undoubtedly the highlight of the evening. What I love about Squarepusher is his sense of melody, and this is the first, and pretty much only, time it’s on display all evening. Much of the rest of the time, I find myself wincing and grimacing as I struggle to withstand the pummelling waves of noise. The lights are so bright at times I have to close my eyes. For the first time ever at a gig, I find myself wishing I’d brought sunglasses. I actually need sunglasses. I am like a man standing on the shore in a hurricane. By the end of the show my eyes and ears are exhausted.

'so bright at times I have to close my eyes'

 
Afterwards the place is an appropriate mess.

Messy