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Album Review: Seven Lies - Djrum

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Seven Lies is the debut album by Felix Manuel, who goes by the name Djrum (pronounced "drum") and on it he creates a sound collage of genres and influences.

This is an undeniably London-orientated album, full of the kind of urban decay coupled with muted bass and raw beats. Djrum's label cites influences including Portishead, DJ Shadow and Cinematic Orchestra, jungle, minimal techno, house and broken beats. These have all been combined to create a filmic, atmospheric soundscape.

Djrum's music sounds more like Machinedrum than any of those individual reference points, and there is a hint of Andy Stott's mature bass-orientate techno to the deeper moments on Seven Lies. In essence Manuel has created a dubstep album that casts a net over a number of dance-related genres - house, techno, hip-hop and soul - and pulls them all back into the boat.

Seven Lies therefore captures much of the apprehension and isolation of dubstep but plays it to a less rigid, more human rhythm. It's ultimately familiar in style yet still feels distinct from much of the dubstep influenced material I've heard of late - less coffee table than James Blake and the XX, yet more experimental than the dubstep of purists.

Arcana (Do I Need You) builds strings, tight drum loops and a growling bass line around a soulful vocal, creating a heady mechanical groove that still feels like it has heart. Lies, in contrast, is slow moving and fragile, filled with vinyl static and harps and space that encircle vocals from Shadowbox.

It seems that Djrum isn't afraid to step more directly into other genres and disrupt those either. Final track Thankyou is a fluid track of drum 'n' bass rhythms where the drum patterns gradually merge into one another before a final cinematic climax.

There is a sense of the jazz-like experimentalism in the way Manuel's music moves, locking into a moment and playing with it until it gradually changes form whilst painting a series of momentary feelings for the listener.

Seven Lies will be released next Monday through 2nd Drop Records, it is available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on MP3 [affiliate link]. Preview via the album Minimix below:

Album Review: Confidence - SIS

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​Confidence - SIS

As SIS, Burak Sar has been on the IDM / minimal scene since rising to fame in 2008 with releases on Cecille and Ricardo Villalobos' label Sei es Drum. And it's the latter that SIS most resembles on his sophomore album, Confidence, out on Wednesday through his own Cocolino label.

SIS takes much of the jazz influenced timing of Villalobos and the tear-stained soul of Nicolas Jaar and sticks them through a well-oiled manufacturing process, making tight capsules of deep, throbbing music.

Confidence has neither the at times barking mad tendencies of Villalobos nor the moments of left-field reprieve of Jaar, but he manages to conjure a number of well-worn moments here that feel both mechanical yet still used and scuffed. On Mangalarga SIS plays with looping Eastern melodies, bluesy sax and thick slabs of bass across a nine-minute-plus tightly wound experience. It pulls the listener in and out of bustling streets and buildings, between traffic and people, a picture of a busy foreign land.

Confidence is complex and full of detail, meant to be consumed multiple times to uncover subsequent detail. That unfortunately means that sometimes it just feels like the good stuff is hidden away behind too much filler... I might have come away with a more instant sense of satisfaction if I weren't initially confronted with ten tracks that stretch Confidence out to a length of 76-minutes.

It feels like at least part of Jaar's success is due to his ability to edit - Space Is Only Noise was a mere 47-minutes long and as a result it eschewed the sense of being slow moving. Live, Jaar often dispenses with such control but on record at least each new song he gradually drip feeds feels new and revelatory. In contrast SIS's strongest moments here - the soaring Misaki, or the taught yet Japanes Zen garden sounding Messara - sound a little like consolation prizes.

Forcing the listener to deep dive into oceans of sound looking for pearls is often par for the course for the genre, and something that the Godfather Villalobos himself is equally guilty of. In a sense it's a part of the experience, and gives Confidence a journeyed and hypnotic feel. It's an approach you will either warm to or you won't, and much of your relationship with Confidence will depend on how deep you are prepared to go.

​Confidence is released through Cocolino on 17 April, preview via Soundcloud below: