Travis Stewart aka Machinedrum is one of those artists that has become a staple food in the diet of electronic music listeners. Across his 25 years of output, despite various twists and turns, despite migrating from one continent to another, despite coming and going from label to label, he seems to have continually made music that has never settled on one particular sound.
“There were many periods where I didn’t necessarily think I would stop, but definitely felt stagnant or like I was in a plateaued state”, Travis told us. “Usually what brings me out of these states is a change of environment or process. A new framework imposed on my creative system almost always leads to new discoveries and new ways to tap back into creative source energy.”
Few artists seem to have this superpower, this ability to overcome the continued turbulence of life, or the ability to find new areas of creativity to tap into. In Stewart’s case, he’s bested those challenges. The Discogs page for Machinedrum is sprawling. Nevermind his other pseudonyms and collaborative efforts.
Even with just a brief exploration of Stewart’s output, you get the sense that he’s a bit of a chameleon. “Genre-bending” is such a cliché in music journalism, but he actually does exemplify that, and maybe that’s partly what makes him Machinedrum. There’s almost a sense that, for each new album he puts out, he’s trying to find something new. Many times he’s hit on something iconic, but regardless, he seems to have an itch to turn his back on what’s been done before and tinker with the unknown.
“When I feel like I’m no longer learning anything new or am bored by my process, there is no good music that comes from it. It’s not possible. So, each release is the result of me learning something new about my process, myself, or music and creativity in general.”
Travis has also released music under a variety of other names. His tstewart releases are a more compositional turn, often featuring music that’s ambient, less beat-oriented, and cinematic. His Syndrone albums are his most IDM-oriented, glitched out, and arguably his most experimental. His Aden EPs are no-nonsense, bass-forward house tunes.
Stewart’s career as a collaborator is just as important as his solo work. His music with Praveen Sharma as Sepalcure is still some of the most compelling garage-tuned dance music out there. His collaboration with Jimmy Edgar as J-E-T-S feels effortless in its aesthetic, a fusion of retrofuturistic sounds with grade-A production.
“The biggest thing I learn through most collaborations is the importance of trust and letting go. The more I let people I’m collaborating with do their thing without trying to control it, the better off the result is. When you’re by yourself, you have only yourself to answer to, which can be good, but also limits possibilities of discovering new pathways you may have never even considered before.”
There’s so much music to dive into here, but it feels like, in the year 2026, we’re right in the middle of his career, with no sense that he’s slowing down, and maybe even the distinct possibility that things are just picking up. In our conversation, Machinedrum talks about the five chapters that make up his musical journey thus far, from the earliest days releasing on Merck, all the way to present day as he begins to build out his IAMSIAM label.
CHAPTER 1 // CIRCA 2000 TO 2006
“When I was 13, I started experimenting with electronic music for the first time. I couldn’t afford the outboard gear that Future Music, Electronic Musician, Tape Op, and all the other music magazines were saying I needed in order to become an electronic music legend. My first attempt was downloading a demo version of Cakewalk Pro, but I didn’t have a large sample library, and using stock MIDI sounds was hilarious, but not serious.”
“After trying loads of other freeware apps, I ended up stumbling on the tracker community through IRC. Without going deep into the history of tracker software and IRC, let’s just say it was my entryway into learning how to create electronic music through a community of other musicians who all used the same software and shared their session files and samples freely. I would go on to use Impulse Tracker and ModPlug Tracker for the next 10-12 years, in combination with sound editing software like SoundForge and CoolEdit Pro, which eventually became Adobe Audition.”
“During this era, I made the first 3 Machinedrum albums as well as 2 Syndrone albums and a tstewart album, all on Merck Records. I had this mix of excitement, not giving a fuck, and also not knowing what the hell I was doing.”
“At one point, I went to school to learn more about audio engineering, but I was such a punk that I barely passed my classes and honestly hated what they were teaching me. Pro Tools, big consoles, patchbay-type signal flow, outboard dynamic processors. That stuff was so boring to me at the time and seemed like a bunch of extra steps to make the kind of music that I wanted to make. In hindsight, I’m grateful for the experience as I can now go into a studio with an SSL and somewhat know what I’m doing.”
“Overall, I think back on this period as a naive but inspired time. When I first started the Machinedrum project, I really wanted to work with rappers and singers. Growing up in a small town in North Carolina in the ‘90s and early 2000s, this wasn’t an easy thing to do. When I moved to Orlando to go to school for audio engineering, I started meeting more MCs and vocalists, and I began experimenting with recording vocals for the first time. It was cool, but I wanted more, and Orlando just wasn’t giving it.”
Across these six years, Stewart put out a massive amount of solo music. Fans of early Warp releases, particularly of Boards of Canada and Autechre, will find these albums really special.
The line blurs a bit between the three pseudonyms he uses, but it all makes sense. The Machinedrum releases are more aligned with instrumental hip-hop and sampling, almost gearing up for the vocal-fronted production that Machinedrum would later be known for. The Syndrone releases are core IDM, like late ‘90s / early ‘00s Warp. tstewart is more buttoned up, as if the pieces might have a physical score for performers to play off of.
There’s a glitchy aesthetic that’s consistent across all these names during this time, although the intensity varies, with Syndrone being the most extreme and tstewart being the most mild. It really shines a light on how pervasive the glitch aesthetic was at that time, with the Machinedrum releases leaning more into glitch hop, while the Syndrone releases push into the outer orbit of glitch.
Living Exponentially, Stewart’s first major release as tstewart, is strikingly different. It feels almost like an early Jaga Jazzist release in the sense that it’s a blend of savvy production chops alongside cinematic, jazzy, progressive instrumentals. It’s a pretty surprising album, surprising enough that it makes you wonder what other gold there might be in those hills.
In particular Salmataxia (Syndrone) and Bidnezz (Machinedrum) showcase the quality progression that Stewart underwent during this time, and they’re both so different from each other despite coming out in the same year. Along with Living Exponentially, they really deserve a pressing (or repressing).
CHAPTER 2 // CIRCA 2006 TO 2010
“After playing a show in NYC opening for Plaid, I was approached by 2x DMC World Champion turntablist IE.Merg. He told me he had started a battle record label called The Inside and was interested in putting together one with me. At the time, I was already a huge fan of turntablism and owned a couple of VHS tapes of previous DMC championships, so this was a no-brainer for me.”
“I started building out the demos for the record, and IE.Merg initially said the tracks I was sending over wouldn’t really work for a battle record, but that the tracks were still dope, and he wanted to figure out a way to release them. This led to me moving to NYC, the formation of Normrex records, and eventually my album Want to 1 2?.”
“I started working with Merge in person on our battle record, but also the first demos for my first album outside of Merck records. He introduced me to several different rappers and singers, namely Theophilus London, Jesse Boykins III and MeLo-X. I started recording vocals in my bedroom studio more and more, and even got more involved in the songwriting process.”
“I couldn’t record anything in Impulse Tracker, and I had started using Ableton Live for live performances at the time, so I decided to use Live to record the vocals. I started using it more as part of my process. I would bounce stems out of Impulse Tracker and load them in Ableton and do a final mix/fx pass there. On occasion, I would add other layers on top of the stems: Reaktor synth patches, fx samples, drum layers.”
“Over time, I would start to shift from writing full ideas in Impulse Tracker to writing short loops and developing and arranging them inside of Ableton Live. As I became more and more comfortable working in Ableton Live, I became less and less reliant on Impulse Tracker to write songs. I started meeting more vocalists: Azealia Banks, Mickey Factz, Tiombe Lockhart, Addiquit, and lots of other New York underground artists. I was beginning to build a bigger profile as a hip-hop, rnb, and electronic music producer. The sessions were getting bigger and bigger, but with that came some music industry drama that I hadn’t experienced before, and it left a bad taste in my mouth.”
“During this same period of time, I started to DJ more and experience NYC club life. I threw my own parties and collaborated on a lot of events with friends. One of those parties was called Percussion Lab, which was started by Praveen Sharma.”
“He started introducing me to people in the underground electronic scene in NYC at the time and was exposing me to a lot of UK bass music that I hadn’t heard before. I started going to Dave Q and Joe Nice’s Dub War and saw legendary sets by Skream, Benga, Mala, Loefah, Kode9, Shackleton, and so many other incredible DJs. I was also going to every Trouble & Bass party thrown by Drop the Lime, Star Eyes, Math Head and The Captain, which brought even more UK artists to NYC, like Rusko, Mary Anne Hobbs, DJ EZ, Pinch, and Addison Groove.”
“This newfound love for UK bass music was becoming heavily influential in my music at the time and would eventually find me writing a lot of that kind of music with Praveen. This led to the formation of Sepalcure and us getting signed to Hotflush through our connection with Dave Q from Dub War.”
“At the same time, I started sending new bass music experiments to Dom and Martyn over at LuckyMe, who I met from playing shows at their events in Glasgow. I was growing jaded by my work with vocalists, and the greedy managers and labels were putting a bad taste in my mouth. After getting beat down in the middle of the street in Brooklyn one night, I decided I needed to get the fuck out of NYC and go where the music was leading me more and more: Europe.”
It’s a bit tough for Cached and Want to 1 2? to not be overshadowed by the next two Machinedrum records, Room(s) and Vapor City, but, in truth, Cached and Want to 1 2? are incredibly ambitious in their own regard.
Cached is one of those releases that stands out as unique in the whole catalog. It still retains a lot of the glitchiness of prior Machinedrum records, but also leans much more heavily into sampling and DJ plunderphonics. Even in the more hypnotic tracks that would have lent themselves well to a vocal, there is a cleverness in their construction that helps them stand on their own, even as highlights on the release.
Want to 1 2? is the most vocal-heavy record to this point in his discography. Much like Cached, it explores stylistic territory that wasn’t heard much before or since, like how it ventures into French house territory. In a way, Want to 1 2? is seeing the future, keen on the producer-as-vocal-accompaniment pattern that has shaped a lot of Stewart’s direction since then.
Praveen Sharma and Stewart’s collaboration as Sepalcure is another sharp turn in Stewart’s discography. Their releases are maybe the best of the soulful, garage, deep house-inspired sides of bass music. Listening to tracks like “Me” will make you feel amazing. Aside from their two LPs, their EPs are also essential listening.
CHAPTER 3 // CIRCA 2011 TO 2015
“After my friend Jimmy Edgar decided to move out of his apartment in Berlin that he shared with Little Big booking agent and promoter Ned Beckett, I leapt at the opportunity and moved in with Ned. I got rid of most of my possessions and brought only what I could fit in a few suitcases.”
“I started sending the new UK bass-inspired music I was writing at this time to more and more friends. Eventually those songs caught the attention of Mike Paradinas over at Planet Mu, which led to the release of my album Room(s), ideas that were first started in my last year of living in NYC and finished the first year of living in Berlin. The release of Room(s) led to even more shows. I started playing more and more shows since my demand was much higher in Europe at this time compared to the US.”
“As I started to put together the second album demo for Planet Mu, my manager at the time introduced me to some people at Ninja Tune. I sent over the demos for what would eventually become Vapor City to Peter Quicke and Adrian Kemp. They loved what they heard and signed the album plus a multi-option deal.”
“Between Room(s) and Vapor City, I started getting booked all the time. I traveled to and played shows in London, Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Brussels, Zurich, Lisbon and countless festivals like Outlook, Sonar, Glastonbury, Dekmantel, Dour, Tauron New Music Festival, and so many others. I felt like I was on top of the world.”
“I didn’t sleep much. I was either playing shows or in the studio. I was being more and more embraced by the music scene that I had gained so much inspiration from. My compositions were being shaped by the DJ sets that I was playing in Europe and all the long, hazy nights in Berlin spent at Berghain, Panorama Bar, Tresor, Club Visionäre, Horst, KaterHolzig, Maria and Watergate. Longer intros, longer breakdowns, more storytelling through arrangement. Fewer songs and more tracks. I was revisiting a lot of genres I passed up in previous eras: techno, jungle, electro, UK garage, house.”
“Shortly after Vapor City’s release, I decided to move back to the US to be with my girlfriend, and now wife.”
Room(s) and Vapor City are both very popular, and for good reason. There is a confluence of style and skill on these two releases that all prior releases felt like they were working toward. Where his earlier releases focus on craft, these two focus more on story. Everything about them feels carefully considered. The artwork. The song names. The liner notes.
There’s an embrace of footwork and juke in Room(s) and Vapor City, but there’s more to it than that. This is what makes UK bass a bit all-encompassing. Juke, dnb, and anything else under the umbrella that sounds great in a club and with good speakers. That’s what these two records have. There’s also an inventiveness to the beats, like on “Youniverse”, which features a forward-moving groove built from hand drums.
Much like how vocal samples really ride front and center in the mix on the Sepalcure releases, the same is true for these albums. Where earlier Machinedrum releases might juggle a vocal through an improvisatory passage of glitchiness, mangled and clipped out beyond recognition, Stewart keeps them more intact here, allowing them to tell a story all on their own.
Door(s) stands out on Room(s) as one of those Machinedrum signature bittersweet chord progressions. From the extended version of Room(s), “TMPL” is gritty and dizzying, and you kind of can’t help but dance when it’s on.
On Vapor City, “Gunshotta” is iconic, a DnB roller that lays out the map of the city. “SeeSea” is as evocative as his best chord progressions, with vocal samples carefully and craftily pitched for the occasion.
Around this time, Stewart also released a few EPs under the name Aden, and they’re great side-quests for those wanting more. They somehow still feel like they’re within the orbit of UK bass, yet heavily influenced by deep house. These tracks are very bassy and unapologetically jacked.
CHAPTER 4 // CIRCA 2015 TO 2020
“Even though I had only been in Berlin for just under 4 years, it had felt like a lifetime. The electronic music scene in America had grown a bunch, and with it the underground had spread outside of the cities it had originated in.”
“After a couple of years back in NYC living with my girlfriend, we decided to move to LA. We were getting a bit tired of the constant go-go mentality of NYC and wanted to slow things down, relatively. LA seemed like the perfect spot for that at the time since it wasn’t a huge change of pace, but just enough for us to feel the benefits. Access to nature, a more collaborative music scene, and lifestyle changes were very welcome.”
“Musically, I had kind of plateaued. After the hype built by Vapor City, I couldn’t quite crack the code on how to follow it up with something that would resonate the same way. I would try and fail, over and over, basically making songs that were in the vein of Vapor City, but nothing that was necessarily evolved. If anything, my attempt at recreating that sound over and over was reaching an end, and the inspirational tap was running dry.”
“With the change in environment and pace, I decided to pivot away from sample-heavy music and learn more about synthesis. I started making songs that weren’t reliant on sample libraries. I was starting songs on the piano and turning the melodies and chord progressions I was writing into electronic song starters.”
“At this same time, I started working with vocalists again. I met Dawn Richard and she asked me to help produce her new album, Redemption. I really leaned into my pop composition and synthesis skills when working on these songs with her.”
“I fell in love with the new process I had discovered through writing that album with her, and I decided to try to write an album of my own using a lot of the things I learned through our collaboration. Human Energy was the result of this newfound process. The songs for this album poured out of me, taking all of 3 months to write, mix, and master.”
“I started to feel like I was rediscovering that love I had lost for pop music. I started a label, IAMSIAM, to release a lot of the one-off pop-centric collaborations I was making with new artists. I leaned more and more into this sound and started playing bigger and bigger shows in the US.”
“While I felt super inspired by this new sound I was tapping into as well as finding new fans, I started to notice a lot of hate I was getting from the scene I had spent years becoming a part of in Europe. My sound, admittedly, was becoming more accessible. I was writing songs again instead of tracks. Verse, chorus, verse, short build-ups and quick EDM-inspired drops as opposed to long compositions that didn’t have as much structure, but more of a vibe.”
“While this may have come as a shock to people who discovered my music from Room(s) or Vapor City, for me it was a natural progression. I was genuinely excited about the music I was writing and felt an endless inspiration pouring out. Unfortunately, I let the haters win, and I decided to stop writing songs that way, which left me plateaued again.”
“Something really felt off. I started to doubt myself and my decision-making. I was still touring all the time and constantly in the studio, but I wasn’t happy. I was approaching my 40s and was wondering if this was all that was left. I felt locked into a career that didn’t seem to have any exits, and even if I wanted to try to exit I was too nervous to alienate my fans again. Looking back, it seems pathetic, and this ‘I don’t give a fuck what people think’ part of myself had nearly disappeared.”
“Just as I was about to give up, the pandemic hit.”
In the US just a few years before all this, an absolutely relentless amount of brostep had come and gone. Records like Skrillex and Diplo’s Jack Ü started showing up, which were deeply rooted in brostep and EDM, but seemed to be reaching for more. Labels like OWSLA, though still steeped in growly bass, fed American audiences with things like Valentino Khan’s bass house tune “Deep Down Low”.
The equipment evolved, too. Producers like Cashmere Cat started putting out hi-fi tracks that featured new triple-oscillator/wavetable/instrument-modeling synthesizers that you could get your hands on for a few hundred dollars. Relatively unknown producers were coming out of the woodworks on Soundcloud with bright tracks that meandered through a menagerie of sound fonts.
Redemption (Dawn Richard), Human Energy, and Zoospa (J-E-T-S) all feel like they’re a part of this dialog. Redemption is an absolutely massive-sounding record. The arrangements are wide and sprawling, though always in service to Richard’s vocals. “Black Crimes” is especially energetic.
In a way, Human Energy feels like it follows Redemption more so than Vapor City. It’s one of those turns in Stewart’s musical journey where he challenges himself to say something new, and he does. Tracks like “Spectrum Sequence” are an arresting example of this new world of synthesis. Tosin Abasi’s (of Animals As Leaders fame) feature on “White Crown” is a great pairing of the guitarist’s tapping chops with Stewart’s level of production.
J-E-T-S’ debut LP Zoospa feels a bit like an answer to these records, still bright and chrome-colored but tighter in style. “Fire Fly” juxtaposes high gloss production, soulful vocals, and retro-neon aesthetics. “Look Out” is delightfully weird, trappy, and funky.
CHAPTER 5 // CIRCA 2020 TO 2026
“The first year of COVID was, of course, incredibly difficult for everyone, and I won’t get into it as I think we’re all kind of tired of talking about it. I will say, though, with all the awful shit going on in the world at the time, it did provide an unexpected and welcomed pause for me.”
“I had moved outside of LA with my wife and found a big house with an amazing studio. It felt like a little paradise. Since I was no longer caught up in the releasing music and touring cycle, it gave me a moment to not only reflect on what I wanted to do next in my career, but also to look back at a lot of music I had passed up or given up on over the years.”
“Having the separation of time and pressure or expectation for what Machinedrum was supposed to be led to me resurrecting older ideas into new ones. Completely scrapping half of the ingredients of a song so that I could focus on the actual good parts. Forgetting the hours I had laboured over a drum pattern or melody that wasn’t serving the song in its best form and focusing on what actually made those ideas good. This process led to the creation of my 10th Machinedrum album, A View Of U.”
“This same period was a great time of healing for me. Leading up to the pandemic, my insecurities were taking over my decision-making and my general attitude and outlook on life. It was affecting my relationships and the quality of music I was making.”
“With all the new free time I had during the first few months of 2020, I started meditating for long hours. I journaled, I exercised, I had rituals, I started going to therapy. I developed an incredible routine that helped me build an awareness of my insecurity and all of the emotions and actions that came along with it.”
“This huge life change has made such a difference in how I live my life and how I make my music. I feel much more connected to the present moment and less worried about the past and anxious about the future. I’m less concerned with what people think about me and my music and more focused on what excites me and what brings me closer to my friends and family.”
“My daughter was born in 2021, and it goes without saying that life hasn’t been the same since. I’ve felt a much bigger purpose, a deeper connection with spirituality and a closer relationship with my wife and family.”
“After the pandemic, we moved back to LA, and I wrote my last album with Ninja Tune, 3FOR82, an exploration of my inner child. Through this healing journey I have been on, I’ve reconnected with my inner child that has been neglected for years. In turn, I feel like I’ve tapped back in to that ‘I don’t give a fuck’ attitude I had when I was younger, and I feel less bound to expectation and more to experimentation.”
“I haven’t felt this inspired since I was younger. After 13 amazing years with Ninja Tune, 3 with Planet Mu and LuckyMe, 3 with Normrex, and 8 with Merck Records, 2026 has been the first year of my independence in my entire career. I relaunched my label IAMSIAM, and it has become the new home for all of my music. I’m so excited for what’s to come.”
There is something that seems to have clicked in these past few years. On A View of U, 3FOR82, and now BL00MS, Stewart is really at his best. The vocals on his tracks absolutely rip. Truthfully, the vocals have always been great, but maybe it’s more the maturity of the production than anything else. Production that’s punchy, engaging, compositional, even challenging.
Like on “RESPEK”, the track itself does only as much as it needs to for the vocal, but it damn well sets a tone. There is an effortlessness in how Stewart’s production stays within the pocket. But it’s more complicated than that, like on “Only One”, a cut from the Psyconia EP, which is about as jazzy as we’ve seen Stewart take his sound. “The Relic” is wildly punchy and growly, and yet the interlude 180’s into a dramatic string passage. It certainly feels like he’s ready to take on any vocalist. Maybe that’s something we’ll see on IAMSIAM.
BL00MS, his latest album, flips the script once again. No vocals. High octane, dancey, heavy, and chock full of those classic Machinedrum chord progressions that tug at the heart. “THE FROG SONG” is about as jacked as house music can get. “WHEN UR GONE” is a phrygian-tinged barn burner, a DnB tune that’s as expansive as it is emotionally charged.
It’s a weird feeling, the feeling that Travis might be ready to clock another 25 years.
BL00MS is out now via IAMSIAM. Buy a copy from Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST
1. THE FROG SONG
2. NO 1 KNEW
3. WHEN UR GONE
4. FADE AWAY
5. BOUNCE N SLIDE
6. BL0000M
