Squarepusher -- Maximum Priest -- Warp Records, 1999

After two previous releases of live squawking pseudo jazz that had many of his fans running screaming, Tom Jenkinson has picked his sampler up again and he's all the better for it. The drum and bass beats that drew people to earlier Squarepusher releases are back on tracks like "you're going down" and especially "Decathlon oxide" where a sampled ragamuffin mc is warped into an amused vortex that gently mocks the seriousness of todays drum and bass artists. Also check out "Song: Our Underwater Torch" where Jenkinson takes a New Orleans funeral march and drops it directly in Davey Jones locker.
This ep includes a fine trio of remixes which take Squarepushers experimentalism and chop it up into brand new forms. Autechre remix "Two Bass Hit" and turn it into a rolling piece of abstract dissonance, melodic yet messy at the same time. The Yee-King mix of "Circular Flexing" takes the beats closer to their drum and bass background while injecting them with a palpable sense of funk lacking from many of the Squarepushers previous outings. And to top it off, beat master Luke Vibert (Wagon Christ) sticks "Shin Triad" in a blender to create a big beat boogie that comes to the table as a hop hip jam but leaves by flying over everyone's heads. A challenge? Yes. But a worthy purchase for anyone who likes their musicians difficult