Fixate – Fixate (2022)

Drum’n’bass was never gone, of course, and thus is not necessarily celebrating a comeback. For some time now, a bunch of artists besides Djrum and dBridge have been trying to give the familiar sound a new look. Rarely has this sounded more gruelling than on Fixate’s self-titled debut album on the genre institution Exit. Rap interludes, wild polyrhythms, rough-edged tech-step borrowings – it’s all there. And we’re only talking about the first quarter of this album, which then goes on to take completely different paths. Drum’n’bass was never gone, but it has been reinvented in one fell swoop. Thanks for that. Kristoffer Cornils