With his new album Room(s), Travis Stewart a.k.a. Machine Drum moves to spheres above the 150BPM-border in order to create a relaxing piece of electronic music while using hectic and bustling drums. This relaxed manner has its roots in dreamily psychedelic synths-melodies, coming and going, sometimes insistently moving at the fore and then again almost completely disappearing into the background. In addition, the vocal-samples do their tricks by developing an impressive forcefulness with the use of loops and strong echoes. In between, tracks like GBYE or Comel break the dreaminess with their intros full of staccato-melodies, but then again, the ambient prevailing mood often reappears within the same minute. The fact that the drums are generally fast and hectic doesn’t automatically mean that they always follow the same pattern. Quite the opposite: there’s a vivid experimenting, sometimes moving closely towards garage, then again completely new and confusing like in She Died There. At the beginning, the seeming contradiction between frantic drums and a relaxed atmosphere doesn’t make the album an easy-listening, but soon enough, it unfolds its appeal to the listener.
Room(s)
