i'm the slightly irritated owner of about five previous squarepusher album and have always felt that to call them 'hit and miss' was to neglect the fact that most of them are dull, unlistenable jazzwanking bollocks. however, here and there have always been moments of absolute brilliance. always enough for me to venture a tenner on the latest one, knowing there'll be a track or two that makes it worth it.

APART FROM 'ULTRAVISITOR'

But 'Hello Everything' is really quite ace. Melodies all over the place. fun and inventive and soulful. just the right mix of hyper intricate production, live virtuosity without relying to heavily on either to just basically make some really enjoyable music.

Okay there's no way of disguising the fact that 'vacuum garden' is a nice name for six minutes of whooshing noises, and the final track does that chinese bells thing that every avant-twat in history has toyed with once in a while.

But 'plotinus' is a revelation, shifting from off beat acoustic guitar and jazz drums into a speaker and mind shredding cacophony of programmed sound which is just basically fucking exhilarating. 'The Modern Bass Guitar' is what every 13 year old kid with a cool new synth thinks they sound like when they're dicking about with it ten minutes after getting it out of its box.

I've read an interview with Mr Jenkison saying he really had the listener in mind when he was making this album - never a bad thing if you intend to make a record for people to erm... listen to. and it really shows. this is hardly a sellout pop record but it's just basically squarepusher with all the indulgent noisewank taken out (apart from the two tracks I've already said).

so yes, erm.... well done.