Of all of the footwork stalwarts to grace the roster of Chicago’s legendary Teklife label, DJ Manny is likely to be probably the most enigmatic. Whereas his most outstanding tracks flip R&B samples and mild chords into wistful delirium, a look at his Bandcamp web page reveals that he can’t be so simply pinned down. Booming riffs on regional membership types, home, and acid techno sit comfortably subsequent to dozens of footwork EPs and compilations that run from swaggering, battle-ready cuts to moody patchwork swirls. It’s all launched at a tempo that suggests a maniacal effectivity. Hypnotized, his latest album on Planet Mu, is a skeletal, tensile development that casts its splintering vitality conduits in jagged reduction.

DJ Manny referred to as 2021’s Indicators in My Head an “R&B love kind of album,” a blushing, infatuated romp impressed by his relationship with fellow DJ and producer SUCIA!. Hypnotized doesn’t have such an overt theme, asserting its bleak, anxious interiority by stripped-back composition. Manny has by no means shied away from minimalism—his beats may rattle only one or two drum samples across the conventional syncopated bassline. Hypnotized refines that strategy into one thing approaching outright menace. Tracks linger on gaps and empty areas, emphasizing silence. “I Can Luv U” opens with the lifeless ring of MIDI keys, fading into chilly, frictionless air, earlier than ramping into an assault of jittery woodblock tones doubled by a buzzing synth lead. “In a single day Flight”’s frosty pad enters and cuts away with out warning, weaving by thick, distorted kicks that engulf skittering hi-hats and hurried arpeggiations of their muddy wake. If Indicators, flush with feeling and pleasure, represented the honeymoon section, then Hypnotized represents every thing after: the chaotic, detached highs and lows.

Within the album’s most intoxicating moments, DJ Manny abandons the usual footwork playbook to discover new permutations of his core sound. “Misplaced in Da Jungle” is a breezy atmospheric jungle observe that wouldn’t really feel misplaced in an LTJ Bukem set, splattering detuned halogen chords in opposition to a curtain of gently chopped breakbeats. This shift in fashion is performed so straight that it’s nearly agonizing, inviting listeners to contemplate the factors of contact and divergence between the genres. “Opera,” whereas extra customary in construction, is likely to be even stranger, setting the haunting, messianic wails of an opera diva beside percussion and spiraling melodies that ascend with out decision.