Burningn'n Tree

Following the critical and commercial success of Hard Normal Daddy, Warp Records bought the rights to Squarepusher’s early recordings, released in 1995 on the British indie label Spymania. To sweeten the deal, Tom Jenkinson threw in three unreleased outtakes, each titled “Unreleased.” While the inclusion of early songs is intended to show the evolution of Jenkinson’s sound, many of them are unexpectedly fresh. Sometimes they even present a sort of reverse evolution, where his old stuff sounds more advanced than his newer work. The predominant musical theme in these early tracks is jazz, which Jenkinson would return to in the following years. “Central Line” and “Sarcacid, Pt. 1” not only confirm his virtuosic jazz chops but also prove his ability to integrate the styles of electric-era Miles Davis and Jaco Pastorius into a modern context without sounding cheap or corny. “Toast for Hardy” and “Eviscerate Version” pay tribute to dub, an overarching but perpetually overlooked influence on modern techno music.