Djrum: aiming for the dancefloor, but ending up with more ambient tunes

April 5, 2016 9:31 PM

Felix Manuel, better known as Djrum (pronounced as "drum," evolved from his initial DJ Rum handle) blends hip hop, house, jungle and bass seamlessly in his mixes, plus splices the DNA of techno, dubstep, garage and grime in an attempt to make them, in his words, “live inside each other” in his own productions. This blending is not frenetic, but slow and methodical, often including extended clips from movies, such as heard in The Miracle. With a relatively scant 9 EPs and singles, including two splits, and one album to his name, you can get hear more of the scope of Felix Manuel's musical tastes from his mixes...

... in chronological order:
2010 - Electronic Explorations #102 (Mixcloud/YouTube)
2011 - Sonic Router mix #102 (Mixcloud/Sonic Router)
2012 - ClashMusic DJ Mix Podcast - "50 minutes of smoky, noir-ish electronics"
2012 - Imaginary Movie Mix for Resident Advisor (RA mix/podcast #307)
2013 - hip hop, house, jungle and bass mix for Mixmag (YT/Soundcloud - Mixmag mix of the week)
2014 - STWO & DJRUM trap, jungle & hip hop sets in The Lab LDN, Mixmag live set (YT)
2015 - Rinse FM Podcast, unplanned live mix (Soundcloud)
And discover more on Mixcloud

posted by filthy light thief (6 comments total)

I got lazy and didn't link up a proper discography here, but you can dig around 2nd Drop Records Soundcloud page for some official audio from Djrum through the years, and check out another single from Samurai Music's Bandcamp account, which is another rabbit hole of fantastic music (IMO).
posted by filthy light thief at 9:33 PM on April 5, 2016

bah your posts are the best. My tomorrow already thanks you.
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 9:34 PM on April 5, 2016

Thanks! I like sharing my obsessions, which lapses into moody, electronic-type music.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:37 PM on April 5, 2016

This is what I was talking about!

His mixes would probably feel right at home at PercussionLab, which features mixes in a similar style.
posted by KMB at 12:50 AM on April 6, 2016

I love DjRUM but never took time to dig so thanks a lot for this post. I got obsessed with this tune for quite a while.
posted by Erberus at 2:07 AM on April 6, 2016

I couldn't find as many mixes from him as I was expecting, but in his interview with The Quietus, he said

After I got signed and put records out, my bookings plummeted! Because I think people knew me through playing jungle and breakcore. Then I started putting out this chilled melodic stuff, and I guess promoters thought, ‘Oh he’s doing chill stuff now, so he doesn’t know how to rock a dancefloor’.

So maybe he's done fewer mixes, which is a shame.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:24 AM on April 6, 2016