Vapor City by Machinedrum

Electronic music's Renaissance man Travis Stewart, better known as Machinedrum, is prepping for his biggest and boldest release to date with label Ninja Tune- Vapor City - the first full-length offering since his critically-heralded Room(s) in 2011. Between now and then, his output has been an unrelenting stream of versatility with skillful releases on LuckyMe (SXLND), Hotflush with beloved Sepalcure, and the dancefloor blitzkrieg known as JETS- his most recent partnership with frequent collaborator Jimmy Edgar- among other releases, collaborations, and remixes that have kept him always one step ahead of the bunch with fans and music critics eagerly awaiting his next vision.

The man of many faces went back to the drawing board armed with inspirations sprouting deeper from within his psyche. Based on recurring dreams he has had for years about a metropolis known as Vapor City and which have become so vivid that Stewart can describe the place in detail district by district, he has finally crafted a fully-formed soundscape which doubles as a map into this imaginary universe.

"Vapor City is an album inspired by a dream city" explains Stewart. "It's become such a recurring dream of mine throughout the past few years that I began creating music to it, a collection of different songs each representing different districts in the city."

Stewart revealed more detail about the genesis of Vapor City in a recent interview with Creator’s Project:

“In the dream I felt like I knew all the places, I kept seeing the same streets, the same shops and clubs. Weird little details that I kept noticing were recurring and it really started to freak me out that this kept happening. It was the first half of the year that I lived in Berlin. So it started to form this sort of combination architecturally between New York and a bit of Berlin. A sort of old-meets-new sort of architecture. But it was very vast. And I could almost sort of zoom in and see the city for what it was, and kind of get an idea of where I was in the city.”

"I decided I was going to call this album Vapor City. I didn’t really think about the songs representing the districts until I started putting together the tracks for the album. I started noticing there was a consistency between all the songs, that there was a heavy sort of sonic kind of quality there. Some songs would sound like more a jungle kind of thing and some would be this more washed out 80s kind of thing. So it gave me the idea to develop districts out of the city and create songs based around that."

He also discussed his hugely fruitful creative partnership with Dom Flannigan of LuckyMe:

"I’ve been working with Dom for a lot of different releases. I had him come in and do the direction for Room(s). And I really loved working with him and how I could give him a concept and he would take that and interpret that in him own way. It just made me feel really good about having a concept but not having to direct him too much. We had a lot of conversations about dreams and that, but I knew at one point I was going to leave it up to him. So him and Eclair Fifi did the illustrations. I’ve developed a trust with LuckyMe and their art direction. I knew I couldn’t get exactly what my dream was like because it’s a dream, it’s changing every time. So I figured it was okay to let him sort of take that and interpret it in his own way, and I think he did a really great job. They both did."

In addition to this latest musical offering, Machinedrum has been prepping a powerful new live show, which promises to be a visual companion to the album's layered sounds and visions, and showcase this new highpoint in the artist's musical career.

“Audio-wise it’s me on synth and vocals and playing guitar, and manipulating elements of the tracks, and I’ll be playing with a drummer who’s also triggering some sounds and stuff like that. But essentially we’re going to be playing the album live, that’s kind of mixed together in a different way. But it’s going to be a different journey through Vapor City than you would listen to on the album, and visually you’re going to visit all these districts whilst hearing the songs. I think seeing the live show will really tie in the concepts together for people. It’ll be a very powerful experience for them

Travis Stewart known as Machinedrum has produced and composed over a dozen albums under various aliases since his first independent release in 1999. Covering an astonishing variety of styles with ease, through solo Machinedrum work and with collaborative projects Sepalcure, JETS, Dream Continuum, or other mutations, Stewart has established himself as electronic music's true Renaissance man.

machinedrum.net