Atjazz Record Co. has released its share of gems but the new album from Alexander Flood may be one of the brightest. Artifactual Rhythm is the latest release from the Australian producer, percussionist and bandleader, blending jazz and dance music together through the lens one of the tightest live bands recorded hot to tape. Three of the eight tracks are absolute stunners for the dancefloor: lead track “Life Is A Rhythm,” the blistering “Can’t Get Enough” (flagged in pre-release by 5 Mag as one of our favorite tracks of 2025 so far) and “Don’t Wait For Me.” A fourth, the all class Afro Brazilian broken beat “Vibração,” was released as a single this month, remixed for the club by the indomitable Kaidi Tatham.

Artifactual Rhythm is the third album from Alexander Flood, with the first two — Heartbeat and The Space Between — showcasing an elite level skillset for jazz percussion and developing gifts for songwriting. Those two elements emerge fully formed on Artifactual Rhythm, one of the few albums released this year that score high marks both for DJs scavenging for new sounds for their sets and for music lovers walking about town in their earpods.

Artifactual Rhythm was a consensus pick for our latest album of the month. We spoke with Alexander from his native Australia where he and his band had just finished up their initial tour dates behind the record.

How do you refer to yourself? Musician, producer, artist? Is DJing part of the package?

All of the above — musician, producer, artist, drummer, composer, bandleader. I’m currently not DJing, so I can’t add DJ to that one but I hope to be DJing sometime soon!

Do you think there’s something different about bands that are lead by drummers? I’ve interviewed John-Christian Urich from Tortured Soul a few of times over the years, and when we get down to defining what makes Tortured Soul different than a lot of live “house” type bands, he always goes back to his role as a drummer leading from the riser. That bands with drummers who are bandleaders, like Questlove from The Roots — and I think he even cited Lars Ulrich from Metallica — are a different breed…

Yeah, I think there is definitely a different approach or vibe that sort of ends up coming out when drummers are leading a band. Obviously the drums are very foundational, a core element of a lot of music and leading the way in terms of rhythm, time and feel. And yeah, I kind of find that when I’m directing the band from the drums, I have the most power, the most control, the most direction. I can really guide and influence and direct musically through the drums. And obviously when we play, I’m also calling stuff out, I’m on a talkback mic a lot of the time with the band, which is to direct and give cues and maybe come up with something on the fly and communicate that with them. But a lot of it is directed by the drums and very much keeping things glued together through what I’m doing on the drums.

 

5 Mag Issue 220
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MADE IN CHICAGO: First published in 5 Mag Issue #220 featuring Jamie 3:26, Ryan Sadorus, Alexander Flood, James Duncan on Canada’s Collective Rhythm Network and more. Become a member for $2/month and get every issue in your inbox right now…

 

Black Loops is another professional drummer who leapt into music production in the deep house scene. How do you think drumming informs what you do with club-oriented sort of music? Do you think it gives you a different perspective?

That’s a really interesting one. Obviously with the creation and the whole influence of electronic drum machines, the goal was having these drum machines essentially recreating what a drummer would have once played in any given tempo or style. And then I think along this evolution of sequencers, drum machines and people making electronic music, there’s been kind of a flip, it’s flipped on its head and it’s heading in the other direction. As drummers and as musicians, we’re kind of emulating and recreating what the machines, computers, sequencers and drum machines ended up playing. So I find myself listening to a lot of electronic music, specifically things that are sequenced — electronic drum parts. I take a lot of influence from that, because there’s a lot you can get a drum machine to do that you can’t necessarily get a human to do. Or you can’t necessarily play something exactly as per a machine. And vice versa of course. But I think there’s something really interesting about trying to emulate a machine, trying to find the details and sounds and the textures and the way things are put together and layered. As a human it’s challenging to find that. That’s what I’m trying to do with a lot of my music — find a middle ground between human and drum machine.

And a lot of the rhythms that I’m writing and playing with in my music are drawing on classic patterns from these eras where drum machines, sequencers and samples were really leading the way.

Do you consider this album a departure or an evolution from your first two, Heartbeat and The Space Between?

My first two releases, Heartbeat and The Space Between, were both pretty experimental, in that I was trying out lots of different stuff and drawing on all my influences from everywhere and the music as a result is varied. It’s very diverse. But then there was a few tracks on The Space Between — “LDN” being one of them — that I felt like I really found something. I really found a sound that I connected with. As it so happened that was also the most successfully performing track on that album.

And so all the music that I started writing after that very much aligned with that kind of sound. From that point it’s really been an evolution, and I think a sharpening of the sound and a refining of the sound and going deeper on the electronic-influenced jazz pathway to find new things and to continue to evolve the sound from release to release. I think this new album, Artifactual Rhythm, is my most proud piece of work. I feel like I’m really starting to find something. I find it’s taken a couple of albums to get there, but I think I’m really finding my sound and my voice stylistically, specifically.

What was the process of creating this record like? Was it you in a studio and you later invited in your collaborators? Was it a group effort from the start? Do you lead with percussion?

The process for this album as well as most of the other ones has really been me, starting off writing from my studio and myself just sitting at the piano. Often I’ll start with finding chords and then a bassline. Naturally my brain is already sort of piecing together rhythm parts and drum parts. That stuff generally comes pretty quick and organically once I have a tempo and a set of chords and maybe a bassline.

I’ll generally put that all into Logic Pro to build a demo and then continue writing into that until it starts to feel like a full composition and arrangement. What I’ll do then is write it all down to make charts for the band and export a demo recording as a reference point. It’s like giving them all the tools, all the foundational stuff, and then we get in the studio together and we workshop stuff. We piece it together live in the studio and that’s the exciting part — bringing to life what started as a very computer-based demo. It’s brought to life with a great group of musicians. That’s where the magic happens, you know, it’s always a really exciting part of the process.

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How much was left on the floor? I know a lot of records where artists blend a lot of genres and sometimes there are serious peaks and valleys. This is just heat, heat, heat, all the way through.

I put 100% into my music and try pick the best collection of music to go together. For this album I probably wrote about 30 tracks or had 30 demos on the go simultaneously. As some of them progress, sometimes it’s pretty obvious which are stronger or which ones you get a bit stuck with. I refine the list as I’m going and I ended up with about 10 as I refined the list, we recorded 9, and 8 of them made it on the record.

For me I’m always trying to write something that I like, write something I want to listen to, but it’s also about finding the right tracks that go together as well. I think that’s an important part of putting the album together — making sure it flows and there’s a continuity stylistically, sonically and instrumentation-wise.

Out of the material on the record, which tracks came first? Was there one or more you sort of built the album around or which crystallized your vision going forward? Did you intentionally try to mix it up genre-wise?

The track that I reckon I first wrote, and I knew from the start that it would be one of the lead singles, was “Life Is a Rhythm.” That’s track one on the album and the first single we put out featuring Cazeaux O.S.L.O. I’d been listening to a lot of Grant Nelson and Kerri Chandler at the time and I just started with that simple “keys, hook, keys, rhythm.” That piece came together incredibly quickly — as I was writing, it just kept flowing. For those who have heard it, the arrangement keeps evolving, it moves through a few different movements I guess you could say, there are lots of different sections that gradually evolve and develop, up and down. That arrangement definitely set the tone for the record. And yeah, I knew from the start that if there’s gonna be a hit on this record, it’s gonna be this one. I must have nailed that because that’s been the track people are bumpin’ the most.

Trying to match genre and continuity and things is the next step when you have a few tracks under your belt and you’re finishing others. I’m focused on the flow and continuity as well as trying to break things up a bit. There’s the more dance floor-oriented tracks on the album and there’s a couple of slower ones. It’s all very intentional where they sit on the record.

Two other tracks strike me as totally club-ready: the UK Garage-y “Don’t Wait For Me” and the deep, deep ’90s club jam “Can’t Get Enough.” Are there remix plans for these? What can you tell me about the making of them?

We do have remixes planned for some of these tracks, very excitingly, we have Kaidi Tatham, who’s done a, done a super cool remix with all the Kaidi magic and ear candy and everything. That’s “VIBRAÇÃO,” which is kind of a Brazilian broken beat track. And then, yeah, we’re currently in the stages of working on and finishing a bunch more remixes for a follow-up release.

With the more dance floor-oriented tracks, they were made for the most part with the live band together in a room, but there was more post-production. It’s less on the jazz side, with less open improvisation and more focused on strict arrangement and structure. I still think it captures some of that live energy though. Vivian really nails that soulful, deep house vocal. She really brought that track to life.

How did this become an Atjazz Record Company release?

Very good question! Martin [Atjazz] and I had been in communication — just chatting, nothing specific, just checking out one another’s music. I’ve been listening to Atjazz for years now, and always been a really big admirer. He’s been a big influence on my music over the years.

But basically, I had the record finished up and I was, sort of shopping around for the right label. I sent him the music and he really liked it and we spitballed some ideas. He had a lot of enthusiasm. He’s a great dude, he’s been such a pleasure to work with. It’s been really cool working with this label and someone that I really look up to and someone that I’ve taken a lot of influence from over the years.

Could this album be played live? Are there any plans for it?

Absolutely, the album can be played live. We’ve just actually finished up a release tour across Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide here in Australia. We’re playing most of the record as well as a few additional tracks, like older release tracks and covers. The tour itinerary and ticket info you can find that on my website or social media. We’ll be playing a bunch of the new music and some even newer unreleased music as well on tour, so that’s gonna be very fun.

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