Machinedrum / Sacred Frequency

Planet Mu

North Carolina’s Travis Stewart, a.k.a. Machinedrum, is known to the electronic music cognoscenti as a talented yet underexposed producer. Sacred Frequency follows last year’s EP on the LuckyMe label and precedes a full-length album for Planet Mu, and his new tracks and live performances are garnering some excited attention from new fans and supporters. The songs are light and sun-hued with psychedelic, colorful sounds and melodies. Clocking in at 160 BPM, they work with the rhythmic conventions of footwork and jungle. “Sacred Frequency” opens with floods of spiraling synth washes and organ chords over kicks and snares before ushering in Stewart’s sweetly psychedelic vocals. It’s an unexpectedly catchy and poppy track, one of the freshest pop moments this year. “Flycatcha” matches pitch-shifted Detroit techno chords to snapping footwork-style drum kicks and pulses, with Body Language smearing and scratching in words and phrases, giving the song a relaxed blur. “Fantastix” retools UK rave into a tighter, punchier sound. High-pitched diva voices and chord stabs mix with tightly rolling breaks and frazzled wonky neon synths. Closer “Listen 2 Me” mixes tribal drums over a 4/4 kick, looping in a subtle, autotuned vocal and while chords filter in and out to create a lush, hazy ecstasy.

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