Machinedrum – Room(s)

Machinedrum - Room(s)

By Stephen Ferdinando

This may sound like a pedantic introduction – but trust me, I’m going somewhere with it. Now, I’ve come to understand something about electronic music. It’s a genre where you need to pay attention, as innovation is happening almost hourly. The wealth of material means you have an awful lot of rubbish to wade through until you find something great. With this is mind, when you do find it, you can guarantee it’s going to be something you’ve never experienced before. Where the real problem lies, however, is knowing the difference between what is a good piece of electronic music, and what just sounds like a good piece. It’s very easy in electronic music to sound good, using other artists ideas and copying and pasting them. What’s difficult is to do something brilliant that is completely your own; that has your own distinct sound, but is also accessible and enjoyable.

Machinedrum‘s Room(s) is a good album. In fact it’s better than good, it’s amazing, but it’s almost difficult to say why. To begin with, it’s almost like a gut reaction. You listen to hour after hour of electronic music, and then you listen to Room(s), and you know there is a difference. This is footwork at its best, you know it, but you walk away from the record without any real understanding of what you’ve just been through. It’s complex and extremely layered, and at times it can feel a tad overwhelming. It’s easy to loose your place and become disorientated over the course of the eleven songs, as similar ideas are returned to and hinted at throughout.

But when Room(s) hits, and if you’re patient it will, then what you have in your hands is intelligent, integral, innovative dance. Machinedrum has the ability to get you moving but also the intellect to make you listen. In this respect we can draw similarities with Burial’s Untrue.

Closing track ‘Come1’ is a huge tune that covers most of the ideas suggested in the record. Opening with an almost harsh piano melody the hi-hats and vocal shake delicately in the background. The snaps and cracks develop and when the beat finally drops it‘s like someone has finally let go of the lead and set the beast free. The vocal repeats, heightens, and reverberates. The originally uncompromising piano dies away, and you’re left with a beautifully composed melodic feast, bringing the album to a gentle stop. It feels like a freight train that has been hurtling through the woods is smoothly rolling into the station.

The record is fully in touch with the way that post-dubstep and electronic music has been developing over the year, yet it’s still capable of carving its own space. For most artists, working at the speed that Room(s) is produced at would see messy, cold, and unavoidably dark results. Machinedrum’s Travis Stewart, however, is so gifted that instead of malice we’re simply provided with confident and warm music. For a genre that is so fast developing, that is so difficult to stand out in, and perhaps even reaching its conclusion, Machinedrum’s Room(s) is arguably the pinnacle. In the same way Leona Lewis justifies the x-factor, this album justifies all the nonsensical electronic noise we sit through. This is good music.

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