"Because there's so much stuff I don't release"
About this Quote
“Because there’s so much stuff I don’t release” is the kind of tossed-off line that quietly rewires how we’re supposed to think about creativity in public. Coming from Tom Jenkinson - a musician whose reputation (as Squarepusher) is built on hyper-technical abundance - it lands as both confession and flex. The obvious meaning is practical: a hard drive full of unfinished tracks, alternate mixes, sketches. The sharper subtext is about power. Not releasing isn’t failure; it’s curation. In a culture that treats output as proof of worth, withholding becomes a form of authorship.
It also pokes at the streaming-era expectation that artists should be permanently “on,” feeding the feed with deluxe editions, demos, algorithm-friendly singles. Jenkinson frames restraint as the hidden half of productivity: the thousands of decisions where “good enough” gets denied entry. The phrase “so much stuff” has a deliberately casual vagueness, like he’s sidestepping the romantic myth of inspiration and replacing it with something more workmanlike: volume, edits, discard piles. That’s especially pointed in electronic music, where the tools make endless variation cheap and the temptation is to publish every iteration.
The intent, then, isn’t mystique. It’s a reminder that the real craft often lives in what never becomes a “release.” The artist isn’t just a generator of content; he’s a gatekeeper of standards, pacing, and narrative - protecting the work from the marketplace’s appetite, and maybe protecting himself from it, too.
It also pokes at the streaming-era expectation that artists should be permanently “on,” feeding the feed with deluxe editions, demos, algorithm-friendly singles. Jenkinson frames restraint as the hidden half of productivity: the thousands of decisions where “good enough” gets denied entry. The phrase “so much stuff” has a deliberately casual vagueness, like he’s sidestepping the romantic myth of inspiration and replacing it with something more workmanlike: volume, edits, discard piles. That’s especially pointed in electronic music, where the tools make endless variation cheap and the temptation is to publish every iteration.
The intent, then, isn’t mystique. It’s a reminder that the real craft often lives in what never becomes a “release.” The artist isn’t just a generator of content; he’s a gatekeeper of standards, pacing, and narrative - protecting the work from the marketplace’s appetite, and maybe protecting himself from it, too.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|
More Quotes by Tom
Add to List
