This article was first published in the July 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online
Squarepusher uses his songs to paint pictures. The Essex-born musician, aka Tom Jenkinson, was bored with the pointless pyrotechnics that accompany many electronica gigs these days, so he directly shapes his live visuals by his music and the environment. "I've been to any number of concerts where it seems the musician feels an obligation to supply visual activity," he says. "Ninety-nine times out of 100 it feels like a distraction, like music playing when the TV's on."
At the heart of each of Jenkinson's gigs is an audiovisual display. The base of each visualisation is made up of control data from a sequencer. It's then augmented by code that instructs the visuals to change based on certain musical elements. "At the start of the piece, it might be the low-frequency elements that are driving particular parameters, like brightness, so there will be flashes of white," explains Jenkinson, 40. "There might be a point during the piece where those flashes are then driven by high-frequency elements instead, or peaks of volume."
His show for current album Damogen Furies, touring until October, brings in an extra component: local data. "Traditionally, video is made up of a red, a green and a blue component," he says. "So we take the average level of humidity, average temperature and average wind speed, for example, and use those to control each colour component." This means each city's show will be influenced by its surroundings, as well as each track. Jenkinson admits, however, there is an ulterior motive to these images. "We live in a culture that is visually dominant," he says. "I want to hijack that and bring people back to sound."
Squarepusher is appearing at Sonar 2015 on 19 June
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
