(04.26.09) Machinedrum is Travis Stewart, currently representing the borough of New York known as Brooklyn. I first heard the name “Machinedrum” getting floated around during early 2001, around the time he recorded Now You Know released on Miami imprint Merck records. I don’t think I really caught on until I heard “Floss,” off of his next album Urban Biology. As a song, “Floss” hits a very unique emotional tone – eerie and comforting at the same time, easily in my all time top 25 post-IDM tracks.
The “Machinedrum” sound features layers of shimmering syncopated keyboards in front of, and at times behind, crunchy, digital backing drums. The third element of the equation, the trifecta that makes it such a great sound, are the stuttering bits of rap and lyrics, pared down to their barest essentials, that creep into and out of the mix.
Machinedrum has a new album out. It is called Want to 1 2? and is on NYC-based label Normrex. It features a number of collaborations with MC’s from New York and around the world, including the lead single, “Late Night Operation” featuring Theophilus London, “Freshkidz” with Mickey Factz, and a track featuring Melo-X called “Let It.”
I had a chance to speak to Travis about his music, his side projects, and his record label / production company Normrex. Additionally, I checked out his live show at a club in New York’s West Village, where I got to see first hand Machinedrum perform with MC’s from the new album, as well as solo, when he put together an energetic live performance. What follows are the results of this investigation into one of electronic / hip hop music’s currently most talented producers.
Often compared to Timbaland in terms of his sound, Stewart describes his latest album as “Bringing everything full circle, all of my influences from the past and now – making something that’s accessible but still challenging to me – as interesting as possible.” Ranging from electronic / lo fi psychedilia acts like Bibio (Stephen Wilkinson) and John Maus to noise rock acts like Wolf Eyes and Hanatarash, Stewart lists his influences chronologically: “Lots of industrial acts, Front 242, Skinny Puppy, before that, metal, Metallica… I listened to a lot of Boards of Canada at one point.”
Live, Stewart remixes Machinedrum tracks and portions of tracks (both album cuts and unreleased material) using a midi MPC-like drum controller configured to trigger different loops in Ableton Live, a keyboard for playing live synth lines, and a “metronome” track consisting of a high hat or acapella used as a reference point in the track. The resulting live sound is a very electro-funk mix of choppy vocal cuts and synth crescendos – a modern sounding take on industrial meets hip hop meets techno.
Stewart describes his label (Normrex), which he co-runs with 2 time DMC world champion DJ IE-merge, as an artist collective/production company as opposed to a traditional record label. “Normrex is kind of expanding past the whole ‘label’ thing and pushing ourselves as a production company – which is essentially what we’ve been focusing on for the last 2 years, with the conception of Want to 1 2? and Theophilus London’s EP – building relationships with artists as a production company as opposed to a label that relies solely on the artist to provide content – we’re very in to artist development, and assisting in building content.” Along with the Theophilus London EP, Normrex is releasing work from artists including UK’s Leatherette, Addiquit, and Jimmy Edgar, who is involved with production on a number of other projects at Normrex as well.
What else does Machinedrum do? As it turns out, he is co-producing, with Natalie Weiss (of Unicornucopia), a musical called Wanatachi (and yes, it is of the Broadway or off-Broadway form.) “It’s traditional in the sense of the plot, and the fact that we have an orchestra, and the characters are very well developed, and it kind of leaves us room to experiment with the music and the live sound design, and mixing of audio during the actual play, so it’s not completely abstract,” he says.
Sounds cool.
A follow up to Want to 1 2? called Want to 3 4? is slated to be released in early Fall on Normrex.
Want to 1 2? is out now on Normrex.
