Of all the footwork stalwarts to grace the roster of Chicago’s legendary Teklife label, DJ Manny might be the most enigmatic. While his most prominent tracks flip R&B samples and gentle chords into wistful delirium, a glance at his Bandcamp page reveals that he can’t be so easily pinned down. Booming riffs on regional club styles, house, and acid techno sit comfortably next to dozens of footwork EPs and compilations that run from swaggering, battle-ready cuts to moody patchwork swirls. It’s all released at a pace that implies a maniacal efficiency. Hypnotized, his newest album on Planet Mu, is a skeletal, tensile construction that casts its splintering energy conduits in jagged relief.
DJ Manny called 2021’s Signals in My Head an “R&B love type of album,” a blushing, infatuated romp inspired by his relationship with fellow DJ and producer SUCIA!. Hypnotized doesn’t have such an overt theme, asserting its bleak, anxious interiority through stripped-back composition. Manny has never shied away from minimalism—his beats might rattle just one or two drum samples around the traditional syncopated bassline. Hypnotized refines that approach into something approaching outright menace. Tracks linger on gaps and empty spaces, emphasizing silence. “I Can Luv U” opens with the dead ring of MIDI keys, fading into cold, frictionless air, before ramping into an assault of jittery woodblock tones doubled by a buzzing synth lead. “Overnight Flight”’s frosty pad enters and cuts away without warning, weaving through thick, distorted kicks that engulf skittering hi-hats and hurried arpeggiations in their muddy wake. If Signals, flush with feeling and excitement, represented the honeymoon phase, then Hypnotized represents everything after: the chaotic, indifferent highs and lows.
In the album’s most intoxicating moments, DJ Manny abandons the standard footwork playbook to explore new permutations of his core sound. “Lost in Da Jungle” is a breezy atmospheric jungle track that wouldn’t feel out of place in an LTJ Bukem set, splattering detuned halogen chords against a curtain of gently chopped breakbeats. This shift in style is played so straight that it’s almost agonizing, inviting listeners to consider the points of contact and divergence between the genres. “Opera,” while more standard in structure, might be even stranger, setting the haunting, messianic wails of an opera diva beside percussion and spiraling melodies that ascend without resolution.
The conversation around DJ Manny has long focused on youth, prodigiousness, and extraordinary talent. This is an artist who’s been contributing to the scene since he was in middle school, first as a dancer, then as a producer after he picked up a copy of Fruity Loops at 14. Footwork pioneer DJ Rashad, one of Manny’s mentors, once said that “as far as our crew goes, Manny is the future for us.” Hypnotized proves Rashad’s forecast: This isn’t merely a glimpse of the future, but a toolkit for its assembly.
