JUST A SOUVENIR

I'm mainly familiar with the work of Tom Jenkinson(Squarepusher) from the 1990s. This album was a surprise for me. Apart from the odd song here or there, I haven't heard a full album of his since 2001. Just A Souvenir is sort of a concept album about a concert by an imaginary band. This non-existent band must love punk and metal, because there is a lot of it here.

There are a few short songs here with acoustic guitar. A couple of songs with vocoderized vocals. As usual with this guy, he plays everything and samples and manipulates his own playing. "Star Time 2" is disco-fusion. Very upbeat and accesible. Halfway through there is nice keyboards. The beats eventually drop out and there is some lovely keys. "The Coathanger" sounds like a cross between Jaco Pastorius and Daft Punk. Vocoder vocals.

"A Real Woman" is the only song that I had heard previously. This is a punk song with vocoder vocals. It has a poppy chorus. Then jazzy bass after every chorus. "Delta-V" is straight up punk metal. Halfway through it reminds me of Ruins. "Potential Govaner" sounds like its skipping at first. It stops the skipping when the jazzy guitar comes in. Jazzy bass solo. "Planet Gear" is more punk metal. This time there is some keyboards. It gets more funky and jazzy later then goes back to the punk metal part.

"Tensor In Green" is even more punk metal. Also some keyboards. After a minute there is a guitar solo. Another one after 3 minutes. "The Grass Road" is the longest, proggiest and best song on the album. Starts with vibraphone. Goes punk metal with jazzy guitar. Then hardcore punk. Then jazz metal. Then a symphonic prog style guitar. Some nice keyboards follow. Vibraphones again. Back to symph prog guitar. Hardcore punk again. Back to vibraphones. The last minute or so is just ambient sounds. What a song!

"Duotone Moonbeam" is almost trad jazz. "Quadrature" has some beautiful chords. Very accesible and catchy. Lots of synth effects throughout the song. Good live drumming too. Jazz guitar solo. Then classical guitar with classical bass dueting. Back to jazz guitar. Great song. I was pleasantly surprised with this album. Not exactly what I was expecting. Although not extremely proggy by any means, this is a great modern album. 3 stars.