Thomas Russell Jenkinson (born 17 January 1975), known professionally as Squarepusher, is an English electronic musician, record producer, bassist, multi-instrumentalist and DJ. His music spans several genres including drum and bass, IDM, acid techno, jazz fusion, and electroacoustic music. His recordings are often typified by a combination of complex drum programming, live instrumental playing, and digital signal processing. Since 1995, he has recorded for Warp Records as well as smaller labels, including Rephlex Records. He is the older brother of Ceephax Acid Crew (Andy Jenkinson).
Early life
Tom Jenkinson was born and grew up in Chelmsford, Essex, England. Jenkinson joined his first band at 12, a Metallica-influenced thrash metal group consisting of several other pupils from the school. Over subsequent years Jenkinson played bass guitar in various local bands, playing numerous shows around East Anglia and London, and took part in some studio recordings.
In 1991, Jenkinson became interested in house music, hardcore, acid house and techno. He cited hearing the track "LFO" by LFO as an early influence.
Career
1993–1995: Early career
In August 1993, Jenkinson recorded a piece named "O'Brien"; with his friend, Hardy Finn, he raised enough money to release it with additional material on a vinyl 12". Jenkinson and his friends took the copies of the record to various local record shops but found reactions disappointing. In late 1994, Jenkinson began pursuing his fascination for integrating breakbeats into electronic music. At this time, Jenkinson was becoming obsessed with bringing a "dark psychedelia" to drum and bass (which would eventually reach its zenith with Go Plastic from 2001). By 1995 he was playing live sets, including a performance at Eurobeat 2000 at Turnmills in 1995, and "O'Brien" was part of his setlist. In 1995, he heard future Nothing Records label-mate Luke Vibert's track "Military Jazz" (released under his Plug alias) and was inspired by its approach:
<blockquote>This track came on and, amongst the road noise and chatter, I heard what I thought was some sort of hip-hop track being played by a band. As the track progressed, I became more intrigued, as it sounded like they were trying to play as if it had been programmed. Then the Amen [break] came in, and I was floored; it sounded like a drummer playing breakbeats, and made me totally rethink my ideas of programming breaks.</blockquote>
The first recordings using Jenkinson's new setup were released on the Spymania label. Two EPs, Conumber and Alroy Road Tracks, were released in 1995 under the pseudonyms Squarepusher and The Duke of Harringay, respectively. He then placed two songs on Worm Interface releases, "Dragon Disc 2" and the "Bubble and Squeak" EPs.
During this period Jenkinson also made a remix for Ninja Tune's DJ Food, which featured on the EP "Refried Food". The remix led Ninja Tune to offer Jenkinson a record contract, which along with an offer from Belgium's R&S records he declined in favor of a contract offered by Warp Records, which was partially instigated by Richard D. James, known professionally as Aphex Twin. Correspondence between James and Jenkinson sprung up after meeting at The George Robey. The resulting meeting led to Jenkinson's first hearing of the Hangable Auto Bulb EP which Richard had brought with him. But the meeting also facilitated James' initial selection of Jenkinson's tracks that went on to form the Feed Me Weird Things album, released on Rephlex Records in 1996. However, the album also contains some abrupt diversions into quite different musical territory, evidenced in what Squarepusher calls the "Industrial Psychedelia" of "Chin Hippy" and "Rustic Raver".
Squarepusher's electric bass work becomes apparent on this record. He states that he was "still battling with the influence of (Jaco) Pastorius." He wanted to "make the styles interrogate each other, such that one track would question the premises of another and vice versa. As such I suppose it might indicate tentativeness, but in my mind at the time I liked the idea of bringing musical assumptions into question by smashing stylistically divergent elements into each other". In this he follows a precedent set by Frank Zappa, who Squarepusher claimed is "always hovering in the background" for him.
The sleeve artwork was generated from a set of images taken by Squarepusher wandering about Chelmsford town centre. The front cover image is based on a view of the gasometers situated at Wharf Road, near where he lived as a teenager. The 8-bit graphics reflected Squarepusher's resurgence of interest in old video consoles and home computers at that time. This location was subsequently used in some of the press shots in the Hello Everything promotional campaign.
In January 1997, Squarepusher moved to a flat on Albion Road in Stoke Newington, London. This particular residence was shown in the Jockey Slut "All Back to Mine" article from that year, and it was also where Squarepusher's appearance in the "xxx" documentary was filmed.
"Journey To Reedham" brings the 8-bit computer influence right into the foreground. The piece was the first to be recorded of the set and was originally commissioned to be used in a computer game, but Squarepusher decided it was too important to hand over to somebody else's project. The track immediately became a favourite at live performances and was still making appearances as an encore in Tom's run of live shows in 2013. "The Body Builder" was Tom's favourite of the set. This exemplifies a more abstract take on the 8-bit aesthetic, with sounds constructed to deliberately resemble computer game sound effects. "Come on My Selector" has become one of Squarepusher's most well-known tracks, partly due to it having a video by director Chris Cunningham. Doing the video led Squarepusher to develop a friendship with Chris Cunningham.
This period also saw the release of the Burningn'n Tree album, Following the success of the first piece of music, entitled "Sad Robot Goes Funny", Squarepusher went on to compose four more pieces for the robots, which comprise the EP Music for Robots, released on April 7 (8 April in North America) 2014.
On 20 April 2015, a new LP entitled Damogen Furies was released. Reviewers commented that it is "less funky but more clearly structured" than past work. All the recordings on 'Damogen Furies' were done in one take and were born out of Squarepusher's development of his own software, which was designed for a spontaneous, streamlined, efficient way of performing live and, in turn, making the record. All this makes for Damogen Furies being an ideal work to hear in concert, as genuinely live electronic music, with the capacity for change a primary objective. The release of this saw him performing at his largest-ever London show at the Troxy, and headlining The White stage at Fuji Rocks Festival, Japan. The EP was made using software that Squarepusher programmed by himself.
In 2016, Squarepusher once again took his Shobaleader One band on the road, and is continuing to tour the project. He also wrote a suite of short organ pieces which were performed by James McVinnie as part of 2016 national tour "The Secret Life of Organs" celebrating the county's great organs as the first 'synthesisers' invented centuries before their electronic counterparts.
In 2018, he provided the ambient soundtrack for CBeebies hour long wind-down programme Daydreams, narrated by Olivia Colman. The same year, Jenkinson broke his wrist in Norway and was forced to temporarily stop playing guitar. The incident caused him to re-explore instruments he had previously played in the 1990s which informed his subsequent album, Be Up a Hello. Squarepusher was also influenced by the death of Chris Marshall, his childhood friend to whom he dedicated the album. Featuring a return to his acidic drum and bass roots the album was released on 31 January 2020. "Vortrack", "Vortrack" (Fracture Remix), and "Nervelevers" were released in the weeks leading up to the album's release.
On January 21, 2024, Squarepusher sent out an email to his subscribers on the Warp Records email list, linking to a download for a WAV file named "XY.wav". Plugging the WAV file into an oscilloscope and plotting the signal as an XY plot revealed the word "Dostrotime". Dostrotime was released on CD, LP, and digital download on 1 March 2024. The single "Wendorlan" was released to promote the album.
In February 2026, he released the single "K2 Central" as the lead single to his April 2026 album Kammerkonzert.
Political commitment
2016: MIDI SANS FRONTIERES
An International Invitation Remix: "It was an attempt to challenge the toxic legacy, namely the legitimization of racist and xenophobic attitudes in the UK, generated by several leading campaigners in the UK's referendum on membership in the EU." All people were invited to collaborate using musical materials that Squarepusher provided to remix it, with the only stipulation being that, to be listed in this archive, any work had to be titled "Midi Sans Frontières".
Discography
Albums
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
|-
! scope="col" rowspan="2"|Year
! scope="col" rowspan="2"|Title
! scope="col" colspan="3"|Peak positions
|-
! scope="col" style="width:3em;font-size:90%;" | UK<br />
! scope="col" style="width:3em;font-size:90%;" | BEL <br />(FL)<br />
! scope="col" style="width:3em;font-size:90%;" | US <br />Dance<br />
|-
| 1996
| style="text-align:left;"| Feed Me Weird Things
| — || — || —
|-
| 1997
| style="text-align:left;"| Hard Normal Daddy
| 115 || — || —
|-
| 1998
| style="text-align:left;"| Music Is Rotted One Note
| — || — || —
|-
| 1999
| style="text-align:left;"| Selection Sixteen
| — || — || —
|-
| 2001
| style="text-align:left;"| Go Plastic
| 100 || — || —
|-
| 2002
| style="text-align:left;"| Do You Know Squarepusher
| 192 || — || —
|-
| 2004
| style="text-align:left;"| Ultravisitor
| 90 || — || 9
|-
| 2006
| style="text-align:left;"| Hello Everything
| 89 || — || 16
|-
| 2008
| style="text-align:left;"| Just a Souvenir
| — || — || 17
|-
| 2012
| style="text-align:left;"| Ufabulum
| 101 || 83 || 14
|-
| 2015
| style="text-align:left;"| Damogen Furies
| 110 || 96 || 8
|-
| 2020
| style="text-align:left;"| Be Up a Hello
| 77 || 70 || —
|-
| 2024
| style="text-align:left;"| Dostrotime
| 85 || 141 || —
|-
| 2026
| style="text-align:left;"| Kammerkonzert
| — || 103 || —
|}
EPs, singles and promos
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
|-
! style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2"|Year
! style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2"|Title
! style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2"|Notes
! style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Peak positions
|-
! scope="col" style="width:3em;font-size:90%;" | UK<br />
| — || —
|-
| rowspan="2"| 1995
| style="text-align:left;"| Conumber E:P
| style="text-align:left;"| Released on Spymania. Partially compiled into Burningn'n Tree.
| — || —
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| Alroy Road Tracks
| style="text-align:left;"| Released on Spymania under the alias The Duke of Harringay, later all tracks included in Squarepusher compilation Burningn'n Tree.
| — || —
|-
| rowspan="4"| 1996
| style="text-align:left;"| Bubble and Squeak
| style="text-align:left;"| Credited to Tom Jenkinson.
| — || —
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| Dragon Disc 2
| style="text-align:left;"| Split EP with Dunderhead, credited to Tom Jenkinson.
| — || —
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| Squarepusher Plays...
| style="text-align:left;"| Both exclusive tracks ("Theme From Goodbye Renaldo" and "Deep Fried Pizza") appear as bonus tracks on the Japanese release of Feed Me Weird Things.
| — || —
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| Port Rhombus EP
| style="text-align:left;"| Also compiled on the US version of Big Loada on Nothing Records
| 182 || —
|-
| rowspan="2"| 1997
| style="text-align:left;"| "Vic Acid"
| style="text-align:left;"|
| 156 || —
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| Big Loada
| style="text-align:left;"| Also released on Nothing Records in 1998.
| 134 || —
|-
| 1998
| style="text-align:left;"| Remixes 12"
| style="text-align:left;"| Released under the alias Chaos A.D. on Rephlex.
| — || —
|-
| rowspan="4" | 1999
| style="text-align:left;"|
Budakhan Mindphone
| style="text-align:left;"|EP
| 183 || —
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
Maximum Priest EP
| style="text-align:left;"| EP
| — || —
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| Anti-Greylord Protection Scheme Prelude
| style="text-align:left;"| EP, included with most copies of Selection Sixteen
| — || —
|-
| style="text-align: left;" |I Am Carnal, And I Know That You Approve
| style="text-align: left;" |Collaborative EP with Richard Thomas
|—
|—
|-
| rowspan="2" | 2001
| style="text-align:left;" | "My Red Hot Car"
| style="text-align:left;" | Single, reached number 1 on the UK Budget Albums Chart.