The Djrum DJ-Kicks mix is coming on 16 October via !K7 Records, and it is shaping up as one of the more idiosyncratic entries in a series that has been running since 1995. The British producer, whose real name is Felix Manuel, has assembled 33 tracks into a live-vinyl mix that then went under the knife in post-production, chopping and reshaping the recorded performance into its final form.
Four new Djrum originals sit inside the running order, including ‘Psychic Video’, which is already available to hear. Exclusives from Skee Mask and Clark appear alongside a curveball deep cut from The Raincoats, ‘Only Loved at Night’, a choice that tells you plenty about the headspace Felix Manuel is operating in. Also featured across the 33 tracks: work by Venetian Snares, Susumu Yokota, and Chris Watson, the latter represented by no fewer than four separate pieces including field recordings from Glastonbury and the Kenyan savanna.
The Djrum DJ-Kicks Mix in Context: A Prolific Run
This release caps a period of relentless output. Since returning with the EP Meaning’s Edge in late 2024, Djrum has put out the album Under Tangled Silence, a string of remixes, and another EP, I Wander, just last month. The DJ-Kicks commission slots in at the end of that cycle, a natural endpoint for a run of music that has kept pace with itself almost uncomfortably well.
Under Tangled Silence and the track ‘Three Foxes Chasing Each Other’ both featured in Pitchfork’s Albums and Songs of 2025 lists, putting Djrum at the sharper end of critical attention for electronic music this year.
‘I like things to be a bit bumpy,’ Djrum says in press materials, ‘to have ups and downs and f*ck with expectations!’ The tracklist bears that out. Watson’s glacial field recordings sit alongside Venetian Snares’ breakcore, Susumu Yokota’s vaporous electronics, and a jazz cut from Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids. Upsammy, Emptyset, Eli Keszler, and Cabaret Voltaire’s Chris Watson all make appearances. The sequencing lurches and recovers deliberately, which is presumably the point.
Where It Sits in the DJ-Kicks Series
According to Side-Line, this is the third DJ-Kicks release of 2026, following editions from Sofia Kourtesis and TEED. The series itself stretches back to 1995, when C.J. Bolland recorded the inaugural volume, making it one of the longer-running mix series in electronic music. Over three decades, the !K7 imprint has used the format to capture artists at particular moments: a snapshot of their record collection and their instincts, mixed live and then delivered whole.
Felix Manuel’s approach, recording vinyl live before cutting the result up in post-production, sits somewhere between the purity of a live DJ set and the deliberateness of a studio composition. It keeps the bumps in, as he would have it, while still allowing for a kind of editorial control you do not get behind the decks on a Saturday night.
The full tracklist runs from Chris Watson’s Glastonbury field recording at the top to Actual Proof’s ‘Maybe We’ll Stay (Sileni Remix)’ at the close, with four Djrum originals distributed across the middle: ‘Turning’, ‘Psychic Video’, ‘Leave Me Alone’, and ‘To Do What to Do’. That is a substantial proportion of new material for a mix album, and it gives the release weight beyond a straight DJ document.
Djrum’s DJ-Kicks mix arrives on 16 October via !K7.
