5 out of 5

Label: Warp

Produced by: Tom Jenkinson

First off: AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH ::head explodes from album’s awesomeness::

Assume that all reviews henceforth are done headless.

So… my Squarepusher collection is, admittedly, spotty.  I have some early albums, from his jazzier stage, Chaos A.D.’s Buzz Caner – which bore the mark of that era of Rephlex – Do You Know, which struck me as very beat heavy and somewhat, for the time, IDM-typical, and now Damogen Furies.  I’ve read some negative things about the wanderings of Tom’s last few Squarepusher albums, but that hasn’t tarnished my interest, and I was happy to take note of Damogen before release so I could pre-order it.

There’s a lovely bit of rebelliousness to the packaging: a plain black dig foldout and a mostly blank, black liner book, excepting the one page written in flat white text that explains all of the used instruments were Jenkinson-programmed and all recordings done in single, unedited takes.  It’s a pretty bold and fuck-off type statement, but presented so straight-forwardly to as not come across as eye-rolling.  Rather, knowing the artist’s history, it’s exciting.  The ‘live’ sound is pretty evident: the double-beat toward the end of opener Stor Eiglass almost doesn’t fit and the intense Rayc Fire 2 coughs and sputters at points, but Tom never pushes it to break, and the rawness of the recording makes it cool, actually, like you are listening to a mastermind float a bit off of a planned path and then expertly bring it back in line.  It also naturally allows the work an organic feel, which I prefer (and which is evident in my favorite Aphex releases, as well as that early Squarepusher album I dig).

As Richard D. James did on Syro, Tom has… sort of released his version of a pop album, to my ears.  It’s a fucked up pop album, but it’s one of the most relentlessly catchy and head-bobbing IDM discs I’ve ever listened to.  In that sense it surpasses Syro, which felt a bit tossed off here and there, whereas Damogen is all primal intent that just happens to be expressed as danceable beats.  Things kick off with 2 sides of an IDM coin: Eiglass is light-hearted to Baltang Ort’s almost industrial darkness, both showing off beats and keyboard flurries for their 4 and 6 minute runtimes, respectively.  Then Tom drops Rayc, which is a jaw-dropping high-end attack of madness, zooming about without, notably, really giving us any bass.  But it’s freaking awesome, and makes the low end that much more intense when it finally drops late in the track.  By this point, having seemingly proven Squarepusher can still do the herky-jerk shuffle as well as any, the album moves through different pop variations – verse / chorus / verse structures, book-ended by noise workouts that make sure we know what we’re listening to.  And it’s fun as hell.  Baltang Arg is another late-album epic; at close to 7 minutes, it’s our transition out of pop-land, starting with an acceptable hook before transitioning to more challenging drill and bass stuff, which leads into the very AFX’y Kwang Bass and, finally “slowing” things down, the darker vibe of D Frozent Arc.

From start to finish the album never stalls, and never feels without purpose.  I guess, like Richard D. James critics, with so many releases of note, people are going to nitpick whatever you do, but to me, this is one of the freshest releases – from any artist, any genre – I’ve heard in quite some time.