Creativity Quote by Tom Jenkinson

There is a particular kind of power in saying you are not a fan of something you are supposed to be adjacent to. When Tom Jenkinson - better known as Squarepusher, a patron saint of virtuosic, high-speed British electronic music - shrugs off Ninja Tune, he is not merely offering a taste preference. He is drawing a border.

Ninja Tune, as a label and a brand, has long stood for a certain version of left-field cool: crate-digger aesthetics, downtempo head-nodders, design-forward releases that make eclecticism feel curated rather than chaotic. Jenkinson's work, by contrast, often performs an allergy to curation. It is maximalist, technically confrontational, sometimes almost anti-sociable in its insistence on musicianship and velocity. The subtext is less "their artists aren't good" than "their posture isn't mine."

That matters because scenes survive on affiliation. Electronic music is a network of micro-identities where a label name can operate like a shorthand biography. By refusing the obvious cosign, Jenkinson protects the Squarepusher myth: the serious technician, the unbothered outsider, the guy too interested in the next impossible bassline to care about the tasteful consensus.

It also reads as a quiet jab at how culture turns niches into lifestyle products. "Never really" softens it, but the intent is clean: do not file me under that shelf.