Djrum
I Wander
Houndstooth
Slices of rhythm, ruptured, layered and laid out bare. With I Wander, Felix Manuel—better known as Djrum—provides yet another cerebral auditory treat. The UK musician and turntablist has a knack for finding sonic equilibrium between fragments that don’t conventionally resolve into harmony and on this six-part, 17-minute-long outing, he’s once again done just that.
I Wander is populated with seemingly impossible sonic arrangements, but they’ve been executed with ease by the prodigious British instrumentalist, who wields his tools as though they were extensions of his own body. There’s a willingness in his work to expose the veins of sound itself, whether he’s building a bespoke instrument out of a piece of wood, experimenting with harps, flutes and piano or displaying a jaw-dropping level of technical prowess over a three-turntable set-up. Djrum productions unfold less as individual tracks than as components of a fully realized, immersive environment—one that’s imaginative and often sensorily explosive. Previous releases Portrait with Firewood and Under Tangled Silence took psychoactive journies into the deep corners of humanhood, exploring a space where tension and release, disruption and beauty and euphoria persisted all at once.
On I Wander, Manuel goes even deeper, conjuring up a lore-like mysticism as his pure, fiery passion turns elemental. As the title implies, a sense of wandering courses through the electronics, with each track moving like a fiery mythical creature that’s slithering through an icy, mist-soaked and totally uncharted rainforest. All the while, digital syncopated bleeps dance alongside shockwaves of electrifying synths; ever-mutating gabber-footwork rhythms bounce off infectious, warehouse-ready sirens, as antique-sounding acoustics gently cascade through the chaos.
Around five minutes in, the composition’s jungle-adjacent trembles begin to tear themselves open, creating a wound raw enough for Manuel’s smoky piano to bleed into the foreground. The record encapsulates Djrum’s sorcery at its best; organic and synthetic threads intertwine with hints of violence and tenderness, and as I Wander plays on, he strikes every sensory point simultaneously, pushing the listener to a place where the distinctions between rhythm, texture and atmosphere begin to dissolve. Aching swells of amorphous cello and shimmering, clinking cymbals mark the record’s exit, bringing an otherwise intense journey to a slow, contemplative close.
