Dekmantel Podcast 267 - Djrum

It's impossible to talk about the sound of DjRUM without using the word cinematic. Whatever he does, it has a feeling of grand importance, widescreen elegance and moving emotion that elevates it way above a dance floor soundtrack. Throughout the course of his career, the UK artist has drawn on downtempo, blurred the lines between drum & bass and dubstep and always imbued his music with spoken words snippets, piano and chamber instruments. His Portrait With Firewood album was a real high-water mark in 2018, and last year his latest outing on R&S once again managed to draw on every aspect of electronic music and come up with something all his own. His mix for us this week is a perfect ethereal rave that finds plenty of beauty in the sparse rhythms he draws on from the worlds of garage, techno and drum & bass. There is a delicacy and elegance throughout, even when the beats hit hard and fast as they do at the overdriven and manic mid point. The amen breaks come thick and fast after that, but eventually melt away to propulsive ambient soundscapes that suspend you in time and space. Blissful.