Dostrotime strikes with bold tracks that are not afraid to go all in, whether that’d be with their explosiveness, intricate live playing, or insane drum spasms.
Sparkly textures that sound rough at just the right point
I can already sense the many magazines and critics that will happily call this album a “return to form,” as if Jenkinson ever lost his sense of groove or touch when it comes to his playing. Instead, Dostrotime is simply one of Squarepusher‘s best executed albums among the many impressive ones. On it, you find your typical array of Squarepusher ingredients: a merge of intense spastic drums and live playing or soloing, his dark and instantly recognizable ambient pads, various calmer tracks to keep things varied, and, of course, said impeccable sense of groove for tight drum and bass beats.
Though there are various relaxing pieces on this LP, more notably the three acoustic “Arkteon,” the intense tracks are among the most aggressive Jenkinson has ever made. Not that his catalog has a shortage of these numbers, most of this album does in fact sound in line with a lot of the really dark tracks found on a record like Go Plastic, but Dostrotime puts intensity over discomfort, as none of its cuts ever feel oppressing or excessively harsh, the album is actually really fun overall.
After the introductory “Arkteon 1,” the record opens up with a series of its best tracks, the first one being a never-ending ascension. “Enbouce” is constantly climaxing, throughout its entire six minutes runtime; the first times you go through it you may think it’s about to explode at any moment, but instead it somehow gets more and more intense with each second that passes without ever bursting. Starting off with some really smooth and beautiful chords, the track introduces its groove, then its—amazing may I say—lead melody, and then all of this gets amplified constantly, adding more elements to the track’s beat and rougher and more ecstatic lead melodies. One thing I particularly like about this whole LP is how great the synthesizers and the guitars sound, offering some either grimy or sparkly textures that sound rough at just the right point; “Enbounce” has no shortage of that, and with the beat getting really tight by the end of the song, especially with the ostinato that Jenkinson crafts out of the kicks, they make for a fantastic pairing that kicks off the album with an explosive start.
We then move onto “Wendorlan,” which ranks among the best Squarepusher songs. To put it bluntly, the groove at the beginning of this track is the shit; keeping the momentum generated by “Enbounce,” “Wendorlan” creates the album’s most energetic and tightest groove in just thirty seconds. The way the kick comes back in to match the leading acid riff will never not make me lose my shit, and even though that’s the most brain-melting part of the song for me, it’s actually just started building a really intense beginning. From here, the track twists and bends its acid riff as much as it pleases, always keeping it fresh, and I adore the claps that get added just a bit later, marking every bar with a snappy sound that pulls you even more into this thrilling groove. As it builds, the track eventually bursts into a manic unpredictable acid fest, with glitching so frequent that makes it beyond exciting. Even the track’s finale is worth highlighting, as it explodes once more after a period or relative calm.
Jenkinson’s pads are unmistakably his ::
“Duneray” is also a fantastic tune, yet again offering one of the nastiest grooves on the album, mainly thanks to how dirty its bass sounds. The thing I especially love about this tune is how it takes two whole minutes for it to get into a proper drum and bass beat, while initially you get these oddly placed snare accents that seem to always interrupt the short drum shuffles, creating this amazing hiccupping groove. The track’s breakdown halfway through is one of the better moments on this LP, reaching “Tundra” levels of chills thanks to the crispy echoes of the snares and Jenkinson’s pads that are unmistakably his.
After this, the album goes through my least favorite batch of tracks; though some of these do have some of my favorite moments on the album, like the smooth as butter bass playing in “Kronmec,” “Arkteon 2” being the best of the three, and “Holoform”‘s massive opening chord progression and dizzying guitar solos, this part of the record does lack a true highlight, as none of these tracks quite reach a true satisfactory moment, making this portion a little slow overall. It doesn’t help much that “Akkranen” is then my least favorite of the exciting tunes, as its progression is rather sloppy due to the track suddenly exploding when its first half hinted at something completely different.
Either way, two more amazing tunes find themselves tailing off the album’s intense portion, those being “Stromcor” and “Domelash.” The latter is appropriately titled, being by far the most spastic and erratic track on the LP—which should be saying something. It also has the harshest percussion, creating a seriously tough piece overall. “Stromcor” is instead more traditional to the album’s general approach, though Jenkinson’s playing gets really avant-garde on this tune, featuring dissonant bass and guitar lines, which merge effortlessly with the acid squelches, creating some both interesting textures and exotic arrangements to say the least. The grooves on both of these tracks are, as always, tense and intense, I don’t think I need to repeat myself some more on that front.
Overall, Dostrotime shines thanks to few but meticulously assembled tracks. It’s very much clear that when the album wants to hit, it does so without any hesitation and pulls it off confidently; the spastic drill and bass numbers found in this tracklist are really tight, rich in detail and constantly morphing, all things that help them maintain their excellent grooves and excitement. It is a whole lot of fun and you also get plenty of moments to catch a breath in this tracklist—maybe too many.
Dostrotime strikes with bold tracks that are not afraid to go all in, whether that’d be with their explosiveness, intricate live playing, or insane drum spasms. If that doesn’t sound fun to you, I’ll keep the album for myself.
Dostrotime is available on Warp. [Bandcamp | Bleep]
