Djrum mixes the next ‘DJ-Kicks’ for !K7, with four new tracks and exclusives by Skee Mask and Clark
Djrum’s “DJ-Kicks” mix arrives on !K7 on 16 October 2026 with four new tracks, exclusives by Skee Mask and Clark, and the single “Psychic Video”. Live dates.
Djrum - Photo: Vasso Vu
!K7 Records has handed its next DJ-Kicks mix to Djrum. “DJ-Kicks: Djrum” arrives on 16 October 2026 as a signed 2LP EcoRecord, a standard 2LP EcoRecord, a digipak CD and a digital album, and is available to pre-order. The London DJ and producer Felix Manuel mixed it live from vinyl on three turntables, then chopped, collaged and overdubbed the result in the studio. The mix carries four new Djrum productions – “Turning”, “Psychic Video”, “Leave Me Alone” and “To Do What To Do” – alongside exclusive tracks by Skee Mask and Clark. “Psychic Video” is the lead single and is out now.
The mix moves through ambient, classical, post-punk, acid, breakcore and percussive minimalism, and it runs on a thread of field recordings by Chris Watson, the sound recordist who co-founded Cabaret Voltaire in Sheffield in 1973 and left the group in 1981 to record for television. Three Watson pieces sit in the mix: “Glastonbury Ocean Soundscape” opens it, “El Divisadero” arrives past the halfway mark and “Waiting (aka Adult Cheetah)” follows the Skee Mask, Eli Keszler and E Wata tracks. Between them Djrum places Venetian Snares, The Raincoats, emptyset, upsammy, Bugge Wesseltoft and E Wata. “I like things to be a bit bumpy,” Djrum said of the sequencing, “to have ups and downs and fck with expectations!”*
Manuel described his studio process as “meditational”, and he named DJ Food, “who, I think, is my most revered DJ of all time”, as an influence on the record. The press release describes the single “Psychic Video” as “a convulsive, percussive-heavy roller of mind-bending electronics with chopped spoken word samples”.
The Bandcamp digital listing and the press release do not agree on the tracklist. Bandcamp shows 32 entries, ending with the continuous mix as track 32, and credits tracks 8 and 12 to Idris Ackamoor and Kimyan. The press release lists 31 tracks without the continuous mix, credits the same two tracks to Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids and Kimyan Law, and places Susumu Yokota’s “Fearful Dream” at track 11, available in the mix version on download and physical formats only. The digital running order on Bandcamp reads: Chris Watson “Glastonbury Ocean Soundscape”, Djrum “Turning”, Venetian Snares “Miss Balaton”, Uwalmassa “Untitled 12”, Clark “Clonk Dual”, Human Resources “New T”, Djrum “Psychic Video (DJ-Kicks)”, Idris Ackamoor “Traponga”, Atrice “Hatara”, Lino Capra Vaccina “Antico Adagio”, Lo.Sai “Voi Siete Qui”, Kimyan “Chungwa”, Core Self “Suspiria”, The Raincoats “Only Loved At Night”, Djrum “Leave Me Alone”, Chewlie “Run”, Bugge Wesseltoft “Flimmer”, Chris Watson “El Divisadero”, emptyset “Point”, Planet Battagon “Salacians of Trans-Neptunia”, Skee Mask “Flip”, Eli Keszler “Sun”, E Wata “U D S2S”, Chris Watson “Waiting (aka Adult Cheetah)”, |||||||||||||||||||| “Causalities”, Mark “Incantation For The Protection Of JC”, upsammy “Relict”, A.Fruit “Measures of Dispersion”, Sandro Mussida “EEE”, Djrum “To Do What To Do”, Actual Proof “Maybe We’ll Stay (Sileni Remix)” and the continuous mix.
The DJ-Kicks series began in 1995 with C.J. Bolland’s volume and has run on !K7 since, with Modeselektor and Eris Drew delivering the last two entries of 2025. Djrum’s edition is the third of 2026, after those by Sofia Kourtesis and TEED.
Djrum live dates 2026
Djrum has played Lowlands, Gare in Porto and Gravitate Festival over the past two weeks. The remaining dates run into the new year:
- 22 August – Lowlands Festival, Biddinghuizen, NL (played)
- 29 August – Gare, Porto, PT (played)
- 30 August – Gravitate Festival, Alandroal, PT (played)
- 4 September – Draaimolen Festival, Tilburg, NL
- 11 September – Tresor / Globus, Berlin, DE
- 13 September – Waterworks Festival, London, UK
- 23 October – Zeezout, Amsterdam, NL
- 23 October – Club Raum ADE, Amsterdam, NL
- 24 October – Open Ground, Wuppertal, DE
- 28 November – KANAL, Brussels, BE
- 4 December – Cialo, WrocÅ‚aw, PL
- 1 January 2027 – RADION, Amsterdam, NL
About Djrum
Djrum is the project of Felix Manuel, a London DJ and producer who learned piano at seven, trained as a jazz pianist and started DJing after inheriting his mother’s jazz record collection. He began by playing bass music, ragga and jungle at London squat parties and hosted a monthly show on Sub.FM. His first records, the “Mountains” EP (2011) and a second EP, came out on 2nd Drop, the label that released his debut album “Seven Lies” in 2013. A trilogy of EPs and the singles “LA” and “Space Race” followed in 2015 and 2016, before he signed to R&S Records for the “Broken Glass Arch” EP in November 2017 and the second album “Portrait With Firewood” in 2018, on which cellist Zosia Jagodzinska joined his own piano improvisations. The 2019 double A-side “Hard To Say” / “Tournesol” on R&S carried his own term for the material, “ambient-gabber”.
After a five-year gap he moved to Houndstooth, the Fabric-affiliated label, for the “Meaning’s Edge” EP in late 2024, which reached number 15 on the UK albums chart, and the third album “Under Tangled Silence” on 25 April 2025, which peaked at number 9 on the UK albums chart and topped the dance albums chart. He supported it with a 32-date tour including Fabric in London and Primavera Sound. The “I Wander” EP, a 16-minute composition presented as one continuous track on vinyl and as seven edits digitally, followed on Houndstooth on 14 August 2026. As a DJ he mixes from vinyl on three turntables, moving between dubstep, drum and bass, breakcore, techno, trip-hop, jazz and ambient within one set, and it is that set-building method that “DJ-Kicks: Djrum” documents on record for !K7.
Support Side-Line
More people read Side-Line than ever, and there is still no paywall and no advertising. Readers pay for it instead - from $5 a month.
Why we ask
Advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations we have not put up a paywall, and we refuse to add annoying advertising, so we need to ask for your help. Side-Line’s independent journalism takes time, money and hard work to produce, and we do it to push the artists we like, who are equally fighting to survive.
Handled by PayPal.
Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!
