Machinedrum: Room(s)

Machinedrum
Room(s)
Rating: Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It

Producer Travis Stewart uses several monikers for his music, but is probably best known for Machinedrum, excluding the fact that he doesn't really have a signature sound under that name, using it mostly to indulge whatever genre that is striking his fancy. Previously he has traveled from deep house, to IDM, to gitch-hop, and sometimes utilizing all three at once. Apparently Stewart is enamored at the moment with UK bass music, as Room(s) sports his take on dubstep and two-step, while also throwing in all of his previous fascinations. Musically, Room(s) can be daunting and schizophrenic, with each track whiplashing the listener back and forth seeking dominion. While the overall tracks are not truly linked via musical style, the two things that do connect them are that each track is almost filled to bursting with ideas, so thick it is almost touchable, and by Stewart's use of vocal samples. He borrows heavily from the Burial school by taking snippets and warping, twisting, and manipulating them into whatever emotional context suits the track. But where Burial uses them sparingly, creating loneliness and a haunting allure, Stewart clips them, cuts them, almost using them percussively.

The less traditionally UK bass-style tracks work the best on the album. Tracks like "GBYE" which cut up vocal samples into percussive streams and interplays them with dizzyingly busy percussion and staccato synths.



"Come1" takes on house music and makes it all about the build with very little release, releasing the tension in measured strokes.



"Now U Know The Deal 4 Real" creates a unique pairing of electro house with the sterile R&B gloss of acts like The Weeknd and Drake.



Stewart even gravitates towards Flying Lotus LA beat music on the track "Sacred Frequency," which is all loopy beats and psychedelic swirls of keyboards.



I also really enjoyed the gorgeous Burial-like track "The Statue" with its minimal, skittering two-step beat, ghostly keyboards, and the haunting vocal sample stretched and manipulated into a lament.



There are very few missteps on Room(s). The only tracks that don't really speak to me, mainly fail from lack of ideas, spinning in place without truly going anywhere (though as a caveat, the album is always impeccably produced). "Lay Me Down" is rather tepid two-step, looping the same drum track and vocal sample over its 4:00 running time. "U Don't Survive" reminded me too much of Weekend Players' house/trip-hop hybrid. And the loan IDM track, "Where Did We Go Wrong," merely feels like a Boards of Canada demo.

I loved the thickness of this record and the almost sensory overload it gives you. Many times while listening to it on headphones, I had to take them off to give my overworked ears a rest. But there is just something about Room(s) that never seemed to burrow deeper within me, and make me love the album rather than merely appreciating it. There is just not a lot of connection with it, no sense of taking a journey and reaching your destination, and perhaps that is because there really isn't a unifying feature to the record aside from the vocal samples. Perhaps if, like Burial, he had kept a tonal consistency over the course of the tracks, that connection would have taken hold. Alas, Room(s) is a beautiful record, but just falls short of adoration.

Rating Guide

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and peaks one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.