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Feb 13, 2020Your response to Be Up A Hello will depend on your tolerance for Squarepusher’s virtuosic onslaughts. It can be as exhausting as it’s exhilarating. If there’s a sameness to the BPM readings of the up-tempo tracks a deeper listen reveals the layers that are buried beneath the frenzy and show Squarepusher has lost none of his edge.
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Feb 4, 2020Be Up a Hello is Jenkinson’s strongest album for a decade and is easily up there with his best work.
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Jan 29, 2020After several records of heady composition and high-concept music, Be Up a Hello is refreshingly direct. Without simply revisiting a bygone golden era, Jenkinson reconsiders some of his old ways, taking some of his more familiar ideas to new, strange places. As always.
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UncutJan 29, 2020Not a game-changer, but a solid mid-career statement from a true original. [Mar 2020, p.37]
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Jan 28, 2020Whether you can consider this old-school, new-school, or somewhere in between scarcely matters. What we have here is yet another brain-melting album from an artist who refuses to stand still.
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Q MagazineJan 28, 2020By eerie last track 80 Ondula, all moody Vangelis synths and bad-acid vibes, there comes the realisation it's actually the sinister undertone that lurks beneath all Jenkinson's esoteric soundscapes which makes them so compelling. [Mar 2020, p.122]
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Jan 28, 2020Be Up a Hello slots in as yet another example of the creative colossus that is Squarepusher. This record feels especially important, though, because it asserts that what some would consider an outmoded sound palette can still be mined for fresh ideas, that IDM in its golden-age variety has yet to reach its zenith.
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Jan 28, 2020On the whole, the album is excellent. It’s a return to what Squarepusher is known most prominently for but his style has developed since the '90s.
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Mar 25, 2020Be Up a Hello can be a lot to take in at times, a rambunctious and restless effort from a man comfortable in his ability to make the dancefloor obsolete. But there’s more here than simply speed and density – there are strange currents working their way through the songs, hints are something deeper and more relatable than its superficial excess might suggest.
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The WireFeb 5, 2020The nine tracks here compact his characteristic baroque late jungle excesses into compact, juddering frames. While they still rarely swing, their frenetic motion carries bent and warping keys, rolling breakbeats and maddened blarps of synth towards a clear endpoint. [Feb 2020, p.58]
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Feb 4, 2020Absorbing a Squarepusher LP in one sitting has always been for more adventurous or diligent listeners, but the dank final section means that, outside of more hardcore fans, Be Up A Hello will probably need to be navigated in exactly the right sort of mood.
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Jan 31, 2020The overload of nostalgia keeps the album from feeling fresh. As thrilling as those vintage Squarepusher records were (and still are), it wasn’t necessary that Jenkinson make another one.
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Jan 31, 2020It’s a well-produced record, even if Ufabulum is a better example of the new style put to good use.
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Jan 31, 2020Ultimately Be Up a Hello is a fun albeit bumpy ride through future-retroism, best felt in the moment itself.
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MojoJan 28, 2020As restless and fidgety as ever. [Feb 2020, p.91]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 6 out of 11
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Mixed: 4 out of 11
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Negative: 1 out of 11
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Jul 31, 2023
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Aug 1, 2020
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Mar 22, 2020