There are some artists whose love for music is so strong, so genuine and so resonant that all there is to do is simply surrender to the emanating euphoria. Chicago-raised DJ and producer Eris Drew is one of those artists, and it’s a role she embraces. Her understanding of house music taps into its potential as an agent for communality, spirituality, healing, psychedelia and the divine feminine – all of which she conceptualises as “the Motherbeat”, acting as a guide and conduit to bring others to it. At 46, she’s a veteran of nightlife, witnessing its transformations while experiencing her own in recent years: skyrocketing popularity, establishment of the label and resource hub T4T LUV NRG along with partner Octo Octa, and relocation to a remote cabin in the woods of New Hampshire. It’s here she finally conceived her first LP.
It feels like an understatement to say the tracks on Quivering in Time are proper songs, as each one plays like a whole DJ set in and of itself. Take percussive roller Sensation: dropping to half-time on a whim, the mix gradually mutates across filters, melodic synths and piano make cameos, while the bass wriggles with a life of its own. Baby plays with tempo further, and novelly uses turntablism and scratching for sampling, while the closing title track is an ode to the breakbeats that have inspired Drew so much. Quivering in Time transcends the temporal as well as the planar, but crucially, it doesn’t leave us behind.
