Adam Freeland Details

Adam Freeland is at the forefront of a new sound, drone step, a genre that is growing rapidly across the US, UK, and Europe, and that’s roughly characterised as tripped out rock music with a dancefloor attitude (e.g. swirling walls of hypnotic guitar beefed up with club beats). To some it’s akin to shoegazing on ecstasy, owing as much to the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Ecstasy of Saint Theresa and Slowdive, as it does the chemically induced tones of current Noughties electronica.

‘Mexico City’ is the first DJ mix album to heavily feature the genre, but as you’d expect with Freeland, he doesn’t just stick to one sound. Both discs cover nouveau French house, experimental techno, and electro, plus a host of his infamous re-edits and remixes, where he twists rock tracks into epic dancefloor cuts.

CD1 has the pure energy of a live club set, featuring Faze Action’s classic ‘In The Trees’ (Carl Craig mix), Revl9n ‘Walking Machine’ (Sebastian mix), Super Discount’s ‘Fuck’, Mr Oizo’s ‘Half An Edit’ and Adam’s forthcoming single, ‘Silverlake Pills’. The Ed Banger contingent is healthily represented by Justice, Para One, and Mehdi, while Paul Epworth’s ‘Sharpen The Knives’ (as Phones) and Evil Nine’s ‘Happy Ending’ give a good showing for in vogue British talent.

On CD2, Adam takes his trademark beats out into the leftfield, beginning with Spacemen 3’s ‘Ecstasy Sympathy’ and My My’s ‘Butterflies And Zebras’, before picking up the likes of 120 Days, Gui Boratto, Fujiya & Miyagi, and James Holden, and dropping them into a psychedelic mass of blissed out electronica. Weatherall pops up with ‘Feathers’, an inspired slice of psych-rock that moves effortlessly into Freeland’s remix of B Movie’s ‘Nowhere Girl’. Ace French guitar band, Aswefall, turn out a stunning live cover of Mylo’s ‘Paris 400’, before Adam finishes the trip with the aptly titled ‘Self Indulgent Ending’.