Djrum - Portrait With Firewood [R&S]

Format: 2x12".

Portrait With Firewood is DJ Seinfeld’s most personal body of work to date, born out of an emotionally turbulent 2017 that captures the range of feelings and emotions he went through in vivid sonic beauty. Moving away from his previous sample-based approach, he returned to his childhood instrument, the piano, as a central starting point.

“It’s a confessional record… I know that’s a word that’s normally used to describe singer-songwriters more than (mostly) instrumental music, but I think it fits. There’s a kind of emotional frankness to it.”

Felix is classically trained within the Jazz tradition, influenced by figures such as Keith Jarrett and Alice Coltrane. Previously shy about people hearing his piano playing, he was determined to overcome that fear, bringing a new honesty to his work. “Finding the confidence to work with my own piano improvisations was a pivotal part. Once I understood how I was going to make the music, everything slotted into place pretty quickly.”

Felix’s aim was to create something “overwhelmingly beautiful”, but also to capture the “melancholy inherent in beauty in all its impermanence and fragility.” He found inspiration and solace in performance artist Marina Abramovic. “She has an incredibly deep understanding of the human condition and expresses it in such a poetic way. Many of the themes in her work particularly resonated with me throughout 2017 while working on the album. I was moved to tears on several occasions watching her videos or reading about her work.”

Felix collaborated with cellist Zosia Jagodzinska and vocalist Lola Empire. Jagodzinska recorded multiple takes of improvisations on the track “Creature”, which Felix then sliced, tuned, and layered to create new melodic lines which he sowed throughout the album.

Felix’s new approach also expanded into experimenting with field recordings, contact-mic’ing his beloved piano and purchasing his first hardware synth, all with the aim of enriching the personal, human quality of the record.
“Music helps me communicate things that I find almost impossible to put into words. I think the process of this album helped me to create a richer and more emotionally complex piece of work than any I have done before.”