Vic Acid

There was a period in the mid- to late '90s when it appeared that Aphex Twin and Squarepusher had an ongoing competition to see who could come up with the dirtiest, most abrasive drum and bass song. While neither of them ever surpassed Aphex Twin’s “Ventolin” for pure harshness, the songs on Squarepusher’s Vic Acid EP are less abstract. Instead, they lunge straight for the jugular. The quartet of songs here demonstrates Tom Jenkinson’s mastery of techno and shows him stretching the idiom to its breaking point before moving on to new forms. The title song is a positively throttling piece of music, spurting radioactive material and rage, but it retains the elastic feel for funk that was the original impetus for drum and bass. The other songs submit a vision of rave music that's deranged and at times almost evil. The impression given by “Lone Raver” isn't of fraternity and togetherness but of an alienated freak dancing spastically off a ledge.