New DROID Album: CHARGE
Coming August 7, 2026
Label System Dialing Records
Distributor The Orchard / Sony
Formats Available on all digital platforms and 180g vinyl
Contact press@systemdialingrecords.com
From the gutters of NYC’s electro-punk dynasty emerges a neon phoenix.
For nearly three decades, Droid has forged an uncompromising musical language at the intersection of jazz improvisation and electronic music.
Droid presents Charge, its first fully composed studio album.
Produced by Amir Ziv
THE BAND
Amir Ziv Drums / Electronics
Ornette Coleman · John Zorn
Lauryn Hill
Jordan McLean Trumpet / Electronics
Antibalas · TV on the Radio
Fela! on Broadway
Tim LeFebvre Bass
David Bowie · Tedeschi Trucks
Wayne Krantz
Adam Holzman Synthesizers
Miles Davis · Steven Wilson
Wayne Shorter
THE NEW ALBUM
Eight tracks. 26 minutes. Instrumental. From luminous clarity to scorched terrain.
Charge asserts its identity outside trends, scene revivals, or category definitions.
Its lineage passes through Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, and David Bowie, arriving somewhere unmistakably its own.
BACKGROUND
Droid was co-founded in 1998 by Amir Ziv (drums) and Jordan McLean (trumpet) within New York City’s late-’90s live DnB scene, translating the language of electronic dance music production and DJ culture into a live ensemble.
Early releases — NYC DnB and The Latest in Roman Fashion — were recorded live in concert and fully improvised. They documented a moment when live drum & bass was still volatile and undefined. The three-part film project Incitattus I, II, and III further captured the evolution of their live language.
Reviewing Droid, Future Music coined the term “Newform Jazz,” while BPM described them as “leading the way.”
Unlike many projects in the emerging live drum & bass scene, Droid never attempted to imitate machines. Instead, the band treated electronic frameworks as environments for human improvisation, drawing on electronic aesthetics — texture, form, and the use of effects as instruments — while conceiving the ensemble as interlocking faders of a mixing board.
