Travis Stewart’s journey to making 3FOR82 began, fittingly, on 3/4. For his 41st birthday, on March 4th, he ventured out to Joshua Tree National Park, California, to seek clarity and inspiration for what became his 11th studio album as Machinedrum; 12 high-intensity, ruminative tracks that thread the needle between his past, present and future selves. “I’ve been to Joshua Tree many times and I’ve always felt a great sense of clarity every time I visit,” Stewart explains, “and I knew that I should, at some point in my life, go out there to work on something creatively.”
3FOR82 builds on the vocalist-centric, genre-blending songwriting of the last Machinedrum album, 2020’s A View Of U, and the thematic groundwork laid down on 2023 EP 4#TRAX (dedicated to channel trax on IRC, a ‘90s chat platform). Between drum & bass, hip-hop, jazz, R&B and juke, dazzling beat switches and a singular ear for sonics, Stewart weaves in a crew of collaborators. Jesse Boykins III, the album’s co-executive producer and a close friend of Stewart, leads with various contributions; while a ritzy cast including Tinashe, KUČKA, Duckwrth, AKTHESAVIOR, Mick Jenkins, Ezri, Tanerélle, Deniro Farrar, Topaz Jones, deem spencer, aja monet, ROZET, Will Johnson and Ian Maciak rounds the record off.
To tie one final bow around the project, Stewart notes what the record has taught him — a principle that chimed with the album’s title. “It took me 41 years to realise that I’ve always been obsessed with polyrhythms and how three interacts with four, and this was probably subconsciously influenced by my birthday!” he laughs. “I love rhythms that have interlocking three patterns over a 4/4 beat, and I love the rule of threes because when things are presented in three parts, your audience is more engaged.” For 3FOR82, the creation process was divided into three parts: “sound library and palette curation, experimental creation, and finalising.”
There lies an echo of the implied fourth: how Stewart’s audience receives the splicing, blending and reconfiguration of sounds, voices, temporal zones and oh-so-human memories that feeds into 3FOR82 — a refinement of the the template that has made Travis Stewart such an enduring presence in 21st century electronic music, and an extension of the range of what a Machinedrum album can be now, and in the future.