In the cursed days of auto-sync, pre-mixed sets, and the celebrity spinner, few have done as much to defend the noble art of the DJ as Felix Manuel, aka Djrum, a selector who combines galactically expansive taste with equally vast technical skill. For his first commercial mix CD, Manuel joins DJ-Kicks, a renowned series whose 31-year history includes albums by everyone from Detroit techno royalty to Massive Attack’s Daddy G. Manuel has said that DJ-Kicks was what got him into mixing records in the first place; now he wants to inspire others by showing them a side of DJing they might not otherwise witness. It’s a lofty ambition, but hardly out of reach for a DJ at the top of his esoteric game.
Djrum is the rare DJ who operates almost entirely outside the world of genre; his sets swing from breakcore to IDM, jungle to techno, garage to field recordings to—well—whatever, really, depending on mood. “Genre, microgenre—I don’t really give a shit,” he once said. “I think these terms are really useful to describe things, but they describe the boxes, not the music.” The effect of such radical shifts can be discombobulating. A comment on Djrum’s 2020 Dekmantel podcast sums up a typical reaction to his head-spinning sets: “How is that even possible?”
No score yet, be the first to add.
Looking over the tracklist for Djrum’s DJ-Kicks, you might wonder the same. The 82-minute mix’s 32 selections whizz by at bewildering speed and in dazzling formation, from orchestral breakcore to field recordings, and from spaced-out jungle to the nastiest bass rumblings, while the mood flips from meditative calm to nerve-twitching freneticism at the drop of a record.
The worry is that Djrum might be trying a little bit too hard to impress, sacrificing listenability for technical expertise and look-at-this hyper-eclecticism. Certainly, the wide-open effect of the set is intimidating at first: Within the first six minutes, he splashes from aquatic ambience to classically infused drill’n’bass, tossing all notions of conventional pacing out the window and leaving the unsuspecting listener in need of an urgent lie-down.
