More than a decade after his earliest internet-distributed singles, DJ Manny’s impact has been directly felt at the footwork scene’s Chicago epicenter as a Teklife affiliate, and expanded out into the art-dance satellite world represented by Planet Mu. But the further his artform develops, the harder it is to pinpoint its orthodoxies, if it even has any, as he treats the routes of footwork’s syncopated, sub-bass-soaked velocity as cloverleaf on-ramps to other genres. His tendency to foreground elements from jungle, house, and R&B as part of his music’s juke-roots DNA is all over Signals In My Head. Opening cut “Never Was Ah Hoe” is riddled with rattling d’n’b snares that batter its conga pattern with atmospherics straight out of ‘95 Metalheadz, a flourish that can also be heard in the thunderous “Good Love” and the “Apache” bongo-punctuated DJ Phil teamup “Havin’ Fun.” Its nods to Chicago’s house heritage aren’t just expressed the occasional sampled diva vocal (most prominently on “Wants My Body”), but the more dreamlike corners of deep house’s turn towards jazzy warmth; “You All I Need” practically shapes its vision of footwork to fit somewhere between Frankie Knuckles’ “Whistle Song” and the highlights of Larry Heard’s late ‘80s run. And the last handful of cuts on the record are melodically ingenious in ways that footwork is too often denied credit for being. The title cut’s humid kicks and junglist snares are overlaid with a chirpy glide of a retro-analogue synth that narrows the gap between IDM glitch and Bernie Worrell glide until no light can pass through. “That Thang” works in some 2-step feints that its booming rumble of a bassline countermeasures, but its most interesting quirk is the little MIDI horn that lightly ambles over it like the incidental music from a 16-bit JRPG. “Smoke ‘n’ Fade Away” lives up to the vaporous ambience its title implies with a minimalist liquid-metallic warmth that glimmers off the surface of its rapidfire claps and arpeggios. And closer “At First Site” bangs out quiet-yet-towering piano chords and whirring Minimoog fugues with all the ecstatic majesty of a cathedral rave. Manny went into Signals In My Head with the purpose of making a footwork album that feels more romantic than the genre’s usual kinetic-dance-combat vibe, and even at its densest 160 BPM freneticism, there’s a consistent sense of beauty and euphoria to Signals In My Head that sees that vision through.