Djrum : Under Tangled Silence
If you didn’t know in advance that Felix Manuel was an accomplished pianist before hearing Under Tangled Silence, his capabilities come into focus within the first minute of its opener, “A Tune for Us.” Manuel, who creates elegant electronic music under the name Djrum—pronounced “drum,” adapted from his selector alias DJ Rum—was a child prodigy, accomplished in both piano and harp, among other instruments, and that primary instrument forms the basis of many of the songs on his first new album since 2018’s Portrait With Firewood. It’s in the fluttering melodies of “A Tune for Us,” it’s in the delicately frosty interlude “Hold,” and even in the 12 minutes of sputtering IDM chaos of its closing track, “Sycamore,” albeit tucked away behind rapid-fire breaks and distorted buzz.
A deft producer and instrumentalist alike, Manuel has built his sound on the fusion of the electronic and the organic, which reaches a breathtaking new high on Under Tangled Silence. A work of inspiration born of frustrating disaster, the album is something of an act of rebuilding, the earliest recordings for the project that Manuel made having been mostly lost to a hard drive failure during Covid lockdown. In his effort to start anew, Manuel recentered the project on his own instrumental performances, yielding a work that pairs the jittery rhythmic intensity of IDM with a grace typically found in solo classical or jazz piano.
There are few moments more breathtaking than “A Tune for Us,” juxtaposing Manuel’s delicate, glassy piano with a mournful streak of violin. When a beat finally begins to take hold, it gives weight and gravity to an ethereal act of delicate beauty. On “Waxcap,” gorgeous cascades of piano and rattles of cymbal converge into something more like ECM-style jazz, where Mouse on Mars-style bloops and squeaks bump against an elegant synth haze. And on the playful “Three Foxes Chasing Each Other,” Manuel conjures a fitting soundtrack for the image its title evokes, its spiraling twinkles of mbira keys a joyful blend of innocence and mischief.
Djrum juxtaposes these beautifully melodic moments with heftier moments of beat-laden alchemy, like with the bolts of static rippling through the booming “L’ancienne,” or the bubbling, buzzing bassline that propels “Galaxy in Silence.” But it’s in the dance between the gentle melodic figures around which these beats are built that Under Tangled Silence leaves its greatest impact, taking a frustrating collapse and rebuilding it into something spectacular.
Label: Houndstooth
Year: 2025
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