Machinedrum – ‘Room(s)’

A hauntingly hardcore sound

Out of bottomless bass bunkers comes the mutative sweetness of Travis Stewart, turning his attentions to help reinvent the rave wheel. An investor in Hotflush-style weightlessness adept at kicking your kidneys in, Stewart is sprinting in slo-mo, a hauntingly hardcore sound (‘Come1’, of beautiful cogs and gears following attacking pianos) with ability both technical and accessible. Beat overlaps turn glitches into something swan-like, and ‘Room(s)’ is a dream unbroken by the jarring pinches telling you to snap out of it. The only shortcoming is that Machinedrum lacks a definitive singular angle, making him amongst the frontrunners of dubstep/juke interpretation, but not quite ahead of the pack.

7/10

Words by MATT OLIVER

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