Juke

T

Trillhouse

Well-known member
Unlike the bemoaned rather slapdash MPCbuttonpushinggoldenerahiphopsameold70ssoulsamples influenced footwork, I think the Lil Jabba sound does have stuff in common with other areas of electronic dance music but I don't really hear any strong dubstep influence.

The second half of the Jabba lp is probably the best thing I've heard this year. You can hear how much he's improved as a producer from the earlier tracks on the lp, but if you compare it to earlier releases the improvement is even more marked. In one of his interviews he mentions how incorporating jungle style breaks had become a new thing in Juke, I'm guessing he's been messing with that side of the sound a bit, so I really look forward to what he comes out with next.
 
Last edited:
J

jackjambie

Voodoo Priest
rrrivero said:
I really liked that mix jambie put out as well before the Traxman LP, which featured a wealth of artists from both sides of the Atlantic.
Click to expand...

cheers buddy - new one from me up on the WBG mixcloud for a slovenian radio station about a month ago if you're interested. worldwide vibes again - lots of upfront Chicago / US bits, as well as some of the ravier european guys I'm repping....about 60% + unreleased tracks and dubs from the depths of my ardrive ;)

Click here to see it on Mixcloud

 
J

jackjambie

Voodoo Priest
on the previous point from the man like rubberdingyrapids - about rashad & spinn dominating things over here it's very true. they do seem to be the only people from Chicago written about in the UK press and touring in Europe, and it's not very representative of the bigger footwork movement right now that we got a glimpse of through the earlier mu releases and everything that spawned from these.

booking / Rinse FM-wise this is really just because it's so hard and expensive to get artists over from the states, and rashad & spinn (and now earl actually) are the only guys with a european booking agent.

footwork is actually still a really underground genre despite some critical success (even the founders of the scene play like $4 shows in their hometown still...). the promoters that want to book the acts therefore just don't have the $$$ to do it, nor the visa shit, nor the producers / DJs the notoriety enough yet to pull in the numbers that venues require for them to make a profit (compared to say, putting on a house / techno / uk bass AT A PUSH night). even though rashad, spinn, traxman etc get to play fabric off the back of a mu or hyperdub night...footwork still doesn't pull in the same numbers as other club genres.

hopefully this will change. it just needs to grow a bit more here, get more well known. i'm always surprised at how many musical people I meet that still have no idea what it is here in the UK!

like any underground scene it just needs more support, labels, bookings, producers etc.

mike paradinas said not that long ago that he had expected other labels than mu to start releasing footwork, like hyperdub, as he was pretty much done with releases now.

i think that was a good wake up call as now hyperdub have signed the teklife guys and are releasing loads.

i reckon we're far from done with seeing just how much more growth there might be still be in the sound this side of the pond....but then i've let my feelings of support for footwork be known a very long time ago haha ;)

just my 2 cents anyway!
 
you

you

Well-known member
yeah - I must say - whenI saw Rashad and Spinn in bham the night had a very poor turnout... maybe 20-30 people in there at most... Loads of free space- not good. Despite footwerk getting about in all the right places the genre itself just isn't really known.

----

I kinda see an interesting split in footwerk - there is a very sparse, abrasive, clipped and fractured aspect - Rashad, Spinn, RP Boo. Then there is the very textured, complex and intricate sounding aspect - Lil Jabba, Young Smoke. I think I prefer the former a touch - although I've been a long time fan of lil jabba and have to say his new LP is wonderful.

I'd like to hear a Lil Jabba mix..

Jambie - cheers for posting that mix.
 
shiels

shiels

_
The only footwork gig i've been to was harmonic 313 in melbourne, this music was sweet but the crowd reaction not so much, the fact that it's sort of built to challenge dancers & not for collective pished and wiped out raving is probably a major reason why the dancefloors aren't pacjed here.. Barry Lynn (Boxcutter) has been making and playing out some great footwork stuff as The Host and said "you can see people want to go nuts but don't know how" which is great in itself
 
F

firefly

Well-known member
what i find funny with these producers claiming footwork doesn't function on the dance floor is that they're not really doing the real thing, aren't they? it's preposterous to claim that all those rather desperate footwork hybrids pumped from outside of the scene offer the same as a raw, full club experience with traxman, rashad & spinn or earl. i've seen it work excellently in different parts of europe, and yeah - the kids don't footwork and don't even try to - they just dance. but isn't that enough?

of course it doesn't work if you have 20 people in the club, but that's the promoter's fault. if you don't set the right date, invest time and effort in the event itself, even having jeff mills on the lineup won't help your event. i've seen this happen far too many times, just throwing money away and wasting a real opportunity to build a homegrown scene. how can you afford it, anyway? we don't need to be doing a million events a year, a few excellent and well promoted are quite enough, thank you.

as for the critique of the soul thing... i mean, honestly, if the mpc thing gets on your nerves, i think you should be listening to some other style. it's like saying you wish madlib would start doing stuff with modular synths. in a way, i do understand what you meant to say, there have been a lot generic treatments of this style (check boylan etc.), but the way rashad, manny and earl all deal with it is currently untouchable. the way they incorporated jungle breaks is fascinating, as well. waiting for spinn to join the club, too, as kode9's been feeding him some great lemon d & dillinja.

but when the d&b guys get to do their own twist on footwork, it ends up simply awful, even with the best of them - rockwell, fracture etc. i feel they have this already established global market of 174 bpm and even though they let some footwork influences in, they stay old and more rigid as ever, even forcing some promising producers such as om unit to succumb to metalheadz standards... but footwork isn't the only thing they've been incorporating, there's also been some miami bass revivalism in that bpm range, but still - no groove.

btw, jambie - that mix is fresh, man. thanks for sharing
 
Last edited:
T

Tim Reaper

green bay crew.
firefly said:
even forcing some promising producers such as om unit to succumb to metalheadz standards...
Click to expand...
Is this guy serious?
83061ada_kobe-hilariously-confused-reaction-gif.gif
 
F

firefly

Well-known member
haha, that's one hilarious gif :) but seriously, tim, i don't think i really need to explain that quote as it's fairly obvious. metalheadz just isn't what it used to be anymore, and d&b has become one hell of a boring genre. the new om unit is very nice, though. but i kind of regret he's gone that way, sonically. guess i saw it coming ever since that EAN release... lately, the only thing in d&b/jungle i enjoy are the green bay wax lot. if anyone has other stuff to recommend, shoot...

now y'all can get on with misreading my post and having some genuine forum fun
 
J

jackjambie

Voodoo Priest
don't really know where to start with that post firefly, but glad you're feeling the mix buddy...

could not disagree more on the "dnb producers" thing though. it's only a handful of people doing it, so it really isn't very useful to put them all in the same bracket. om unit isn't even a dnb producer really, he's done all sorts, and i've not heard wilkinson which i'm guessing would be a bit too crossover / mainstreamy for my tastes, but most of that stuff coming out of the UK from dnb guys that i've heard is really good right now.

reminds me actually - all of the previews for the om unit metalheadz release are now online which should definitely be posted up on here.

https://soundcloud.com/omunit/sleepwalkers-forthcoming
https://soundcloud.com/omunit/grey-skies-over-chicago
https://soundcloud.com/omunit/the-hand-forthcoming

sleepwalkers is fucking emotional! the sounds are all future jungle, but the structure's pretty much 100% footwork. it's like a total re-think - not just like choppage or something, but proper juke infected jungle. the rhythms, gliding hi hats, bass bounce. it's REALLY exciting to see juke / footwork / ghettotech sounds infecting the last 2 releases for a label as big as metalheadz (last one was fracture's 'gangbusters' which is ace too).

https://soundcloud.com/metalheadz/methx002-fracture-gangbusters

also, good to see this one from some of the teklife youngers getting repped on FACT too the other day.

http://www.factmag.com/2013/08/26/s...iously-destructive-teklife-crew-cut-niterave/

i really do find it strange how sparse coverage of footwork tracks is in the UK press. i mean, this is great obviously, but there are SO many other great tracks worthy of a post that just never get put up on sites like FACT. they're 100% tekilfe-centric on there. something that mike paradinas i think tried really hard not to be with the highly imaginative / inspired "bangs & works" releases....

also totally disagree with all this hipstery hating of "gentrified" "non-authentic" "european" juke in the write up. second time i've seen that approach taken up recently. i mean, come on? what's the beef?

there are only like 6 producers in Europe properly doing footwork right now really, and who's the biggest? slick shoota? what's so bad about him, he's fucking excellent!!! just cos he's a bit nutty and ravey. that's good!! last thing that you want is loads of people trying to re-hash the chicago sound beat for beat and failing at it. he's certainly good enough for the teklife guys to drop in sets, and scratcha DVA. he's backing him massively right now. even has name drops from him on his rinse show. that seems pretty legit to me.

i don't remember any press hating on vex'd back in the early dubstep days cos they weren't from croydon? or distance cos he liked korn and system of a down or whatever? in fact i'm fairly sure that the press rose to the occasion nicely with distance - said things like "you could hear the hard influence of rock on his synths and beats" which is fair and really interesting.

turning your nose up on music based on the background of the producer etc is a bit bate and shallow really. if it's good enough then the music can usually speak for itself etc etc etc...rant done lol. it's not like i don't get it obviously, but i am just saying...pays to be a bit more sympathetic with music sometimes.
 
Last edited:
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
jackjambie said:
sleepwalkers is fucking emotional! the sounds are all future jungle, but the structure's pretty much 100% footwork. it's like a total re-think - not just like chaoppage or something, but proper juke infected jungle. the rhythms, gliding hi hats, bass bounce. it's REALLY exciting to see juke / footwork / ghettotech sounds infecting the last 2 releases for a label as big as metalheadz (last one was fracture's 'gangbusters' which is ace too).

i really do find it strange how sparse coverage of footwork tracks is in the UK press. i mean, this is great obviously, but there are SO many other great tracks worthy of a post that just never get put up on sites like FACT. they're 100% tekilfe-centric on there. something that mike paradinas i think tried really hard not to be with the highly imaginative / inspired "bangs & works" releases....

also totally disagree with all this hipstery hating of "gentrified" "non-authentic" "european" juke in the write up. second time i've seen that approach taken up recently. i mean, come on? what's the beef?
.
Click to expand...

a few little points from my perspective

Just listened to that sleepwalker track - i don't really hear any juke/footwork in it at all, doesn't seem that different from literally 100s of other dnb records in style. The other tracks you posted have the odd juke-y rimshot sample or whatever, but that seems as far as it goes.

i dunno, for me the suspicions about gentrified, non-authentic euro-juke are largely justified judging by the quality and freshness of the music alone. Rashad doing jungle inspired footwork sounds really cool, british dnb producers doing footwork-inspired jungle is just not so interesting to me.

Personally thought the bangs & works compilations to be admirable, but well patchy, the best tracks being those by (you guessed it) Rashad, Spinn, Traxman, RP Boo.

Many would argue quite justifiably that Metalheadz peaked in 1995. Thats a long time ago!

On a more positive note, I don't listen to juke all that often anymore but really enjoying the new Traxman EP (looking forward to his lit-city album), and that DJ Earl 'Ambient' EP is fantastic.
 
Last edited:
F

firefly

Well-known member
maybe what is said about euro-juke might be in connection with how footwork is presented in europe. most of the nights i went to are based around what is called bass music, now - and that can be trap, footwork, baile funk, dubstep, d&b, whatever - but it's mostly this concoction of internet edm, readied for easy consumption. now, some might argue that the chicago footwork is just to raw, but seeing folks get mental on rashad's tunes i'd strongly disagree. so in a way i think footwork has a real potential to become this generation's jungle... i've even seen kids the UK come up to the dj and say ''what's this???'' when in fact it was a jungle classic :) so there's a serious possibility they've barely heard any proper jungle at all... yeah, it's a tough topic, for sure

also, i think someone mentioned dj clent in one of the previous posts, very important... dj clent's been one of the essential guys in developing the sound, especially that triplety rolling bass called the ''clent bass'' which all the teklife guys picked up in the mid-00s. too bad he's not getting the amount of attention from the press as the rest of them

that earl track sounds like an amped-up ''feelin myself'', nice! he recently released a 30-track comp on bandcamp. it's a bit hit-and-miss, but mostly okay.

jabba is on a completely different planet, can't wait to hear that mix of his, and young smoke is somewhere up there, as well. one of the producers i expected from the most is jlin - she's a dancer from indiana, and it's rumored her mentor is rp boo himself. hope someone picks up her stuff

jambie, in a way, i'm glad we disagree, as you've opened some topics i wouldn't consider thinking about myself... but that fracture tune, i still can't hear footwork DNA in it either! :)
 
Last edited:
J

jackjambie

Voodoo Priest
easy benny - all noted.

obviously a lot of it is just a matter of taste, but going to have to agree to disagree on this, as i think a lot of the european stuff is still relevant now even if it is totally different to the hardcore of the footwork scene that obviously belongs in Chicago. i really like the ravey-ness of the european stuff, and don't see any problem in mixing it up with the US stuff at all -

https://soundcloud.com/damscray/damscray-goez-down-free-dl
https://soundcloud.com/kiosk/k-gol-dust-moresounds-remix
https://soundcloud.com/slickshoota/bustemup-slickshootaedit
https://soundcloud.com/loosesquares/sarantis-shootout-loose-l712

what's not to like?!?!?!? ;)
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
i'm not saying european juke-inspired music can't be exciting. For my tastes it would probably have to come from a more grime/garage/bassline source rather than a dubstep/dnb one (or the more self-consciously shape-shifting guys like om-unit, mark pritchard and addison groove). But that would have to happen naturally.

Not juke-inspired I don't think, more trap at 160bpm, but something like this track points to a possible future for me - plenty of room for MCs too.
 
J

jackjambie

Voodoo Priest
firefly said:
maybe what is said about euro-juke might be in connection with how footwork is presented in europe. most of the nights i went to are based around what is called bass music, now - and that can be trap, footwork, baile funk, dubstep, d&b, whatever - but it's mostly this concoction of internet edm, readied for easy consumption.
Click to expand...

ah now you're talking dude - yea fucking hate that all-in-a-blender anything goes EDM style easy consumption ableton DJd shit - totally agree with you there haha! but i think that's a big problem for all club musics atm (apart from maybe house?), not just footwork, surely?

i am definitely not towing the line of this "it's fine for footwork guys to do jungle tracks but not vice versa" thing though.

"get busy" by fracture is pretty much an anthem for us lot at WBG, and it still sounds wicked today. whatever your pre-suppositions might be about dnb producers -


stuff like this too -

https://soundcloud.com/matthealien/bad-influence-f-u-b-a-r-mat

and this one off om unit's pseudogeddon -

https://soundcloud.com/pseudogeddon/4-dj-fresh-gatekeeper-cl-moons

again, surely there's so much obviously shit / just fairly bland and unimaginative music out there in clubs at the moment, that when you find stuff like this that's so obviously good / fun it just amazes me that more people aren't in to it! haha! but then again, that is just for me!!!

come to the next we buy gold fly - there's no silly bass music thing going on. just 100% 160bpm footwork and juke tracks, a mixer, two pairs of decks and a big old rig *plug lol* ;)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top