Ultravisitor

Ultravisitor is the seventh album by Drum N Bass musician Squarepusher. Although Drum N Bass is not the correct label as this album moves in every electronic direction contains jazz and even a "classical" guitar interlude. The question is if it is much or too much. I would have chosen an other album by this artist as this is an unbelievable mess to most of the listeners and even I think some more coherent choices would have created a more consistent and better album.

Rating: 8/10 Best songs: Ultravisitor, Iambic 9 poetry, Steinbolt, District line II, Circlewave

A dense work, especially as the sole Squarepusher pick here. Sitting down and digesting it will reward you with Jenkinson’s creativity on full display, however obtuse it might get. Not my go-to Squarepusher release, but it might well be the most Squarepusher release

When it comes to the original roster from the legendary Warp label, I think that there are already plenty of seminal electronic / electronica albums to pick from artists such as LFO, Aphex Twin, Boards Of Canada or Broadcast for a finite list of mandatory listens. And I'm talking about multiple albums *for each artist* here... Plaid's *Only In Threes* is also an absolute favorite of mine, even though I doubt it can "objectively" be considered as an "essential" record. And I think the same can be said for other admittedly gifted yet slightly less pivotal Warp artists such as Autechre or Squarepusher. Not that what they did wasn't crazily inventive, groundbreaking or vastly influential either. It's just that there's not that timeless "aura" hovering over their own strand of experimental music today. More like a "you had to be there at the time to fully understand" flavor. Some people seem to consider *Ultravisitor* as Squarepusher's magnum opus -- or at least the one album where all his strengths as a bonkers programmer, composer and multi-instrumentalist are best represented. Given how varied and unhinged this record comes off, I readily believe the experts here. This album is all over the place from the get-go -- with tracks diving headlong into expansive Aphex-Twin-adjacent electronica hysterics (there comes one of those bigger names' long shadow, ha ha), to more barebones jazzy dirges displaying bass and other non-electronic instruments (did Jaco Pastorius join Warp records at some point? Well, of course, he didn't!). Yet as stylistically adventurous and technically impressive as the whole shebang is, I still can't shake the feeling of "interesting footnote instead of a seminal offering" here. Sorry. Thanks for this very interesting suggestion, though. In the decades that followed the release of this album, other great artists -- electronic or not -- have signed contracts with Warp records: Gonjasufi, PVT, Oneohtrix Point Never, Flying Lotus, Battles, Grizzly Bear, Kelly Moran, Danny Brown, Mount Kimbie, Squid... I have a few ideas about the ones in this list who also released terrific records that might be considered as "essential" today and the ones that could be deemed as secondary... but I guess that's a story for another time, kiddies... 2.5/5 for the purposes of this list dedicated to essential albums, rounded up to 3 7.5/10 for more general purposes (5 for the production values and overall musicianship + 2.5 for the artistry) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 112 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 117 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 262 (including this one) ---- Émile, *quatre* nouveaux messages pour toi au dessus, du *Solid State Survivor* de Yellow Magic Orchestra au *Atrocity Exhibition* de Danny Brown

Weird Jazz influenced Reznor-ish music. Started out good, and then faded to tolerable about half way through.

It was alright, not really my thing.

Cool at times

How I wish I could appreciate Squarepusher more. Just to random and noise like. I need melody. 2/5

The beeps and boops were ok but not enough to get me to really enjoy this one. Kind of bland overall.

Usually one for off-the-wall electronica like this, but even I couldn’t hang with how abstruse and disjointed this LP seems. Loved the tracks that felt more like live jams, especially those with the absolutely insane improv bass lines. The rest, however, feel sterile and chaotic in a way that doesn’t really feel satisfying, more noise for noise sake rather than an artistic statement. Tough call but it just doesn’t reach 3 level for me, though I do feel incentivized to check the rest of Squarepusher’s discography.

This kind of thing really does nothing for me. I thin I get where it's coming from - taking those fringe tendencies of jazz and electronic music to their utter extremities - but I really don't enjoy listening to the product. This didn't all irritate the aboslure hell out of me, but enough did - frenetic virtual robot percussion and synth knob-twiddling blips and squawks.

I’m not familiar with Squarepusher, but man, this album cover is giving me Gen X John Prine vibes. However, I see that this is an electronica album, so perhaps the John Prine vibes are just a happy accident. I’m not sure what to expect from this album, but I’m always down for some electronic musc. This album wasn’t really my speed. There were some moments on this album that I enjoyed, but most of this was a slog for me to get through. I liked the jazz-like structure that a lot of these songs had, but the overall melodies and instrumentation choices just weren’t to my personal liking. If most of the album had been like “Iambic 9 Poetry,” that would be a different story, but unfortunately for me, that song was a bit of an outlier on this album. While this wasn’t my cup of tea, it was certainly interesting, and I appreciated being pushed out of my normal comfort zone.

Boring and repetitive, and more like a collection of samples than a coherent collection of songs. Borders on hypnotic at points, but tends to puncture those moments in a stupid or annoying way. Not offensively bad, but a bit pointless, and not really an album in the classic sense

The more 'jazzy' songs, those I liked. But the parts where the noise-sections overruled, I did not. In such a way it took down my overall opinion of the album

Drum and bass, musique concrète, nu jazz, IDM. Empezó bien pero me ha terminado aburriendo. Un 2.

This is 80 minutes of a cat laying on a keyboard set to the worst sfx pad

This is not the vibe for today. Holy Moses Steinbolt is grating. This is what it sounds like when a bunch of modems are let loose in a jazz library and they just go to town on each other. An Arched Pathway is so abrasive in sections.