At this stage of the countdown, the variation in quality is so small, you can pretty much consider the top 12 as one long Album Of The Year. Maybe it comes as one humongous CD that you have to roll into your living room, or a single cassette tape the size of a washing machine. That's how box sets work, right?
Be Up A Hello is one of Squarepusher's best albums. It's melodic yet acerbic, warming yet acerbic, thrilling yet acerbic. Detroit People Mover is a sweet moment of stillness in a storm of clattering dynamics, breathless melancholy, and really flipping good noises. I love it.
The album also came from a tough place: an accident nearly saw the end of Squarepusher's career, and he had to rebuild his process from the ground up. Read about this in my interview with Squarepusher in Electronic Sound issue 62. An interview conducted, by the way, after I'd suffered a similar accident. We were both smarting.
I enjoyed the 'Pusher's collaboration with Japanese speed robots, and the LED-bright prog funk as Shobaleader, but his move towards older synth kit really paid off here. Ole Squiggleplops has done good.
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