Juke

[mms]

andy stott is british right
the only difference between that track and a US footwork track is pretty much that there is a junglish kinda atmos in the music, plus the production is a bit smoother than some of the US stuff, a bit more technoey - it's pretty much an authentic take on footwork otherwise, that junglist vibe probably comes thru cos us brits are immersed in our own dance music history so it comes out by default - same reason why footcrab's turned dubstep inside out using bits of juke and sorry but it's silly to say that footcrab is smooth, its probably dubsteps punchiest track in its history - rhythmically and in terms of straight up repetition and that's all to do with what it's taken from juke.
The hybridisation is far more interesting than someone trying to do a uk footwork track which is what andy stotts done, whats the point when the hybrids much more interesting and they work for uk dancefloors - you get into the same sort of area b12 were getting into with its relationship to detroit techno more or less.

 

[skweeelicious!]

i agree that hybridization is one way to make an interesting take on a sound - but it's by no means the only way. i find the andrea tracks more interesting than footcrab from a compositional and production point of view.

and as far as hybridication it also seems like a super convoluted argument to say that footcrab is a dubstep/juke hybrid - and therefore interesting, and andrea is a dnb/juke hybrid - but not interesting because it uses more elements from juke. and btw he doesn't get credit for the dnb side of the hybrid, that just comes because he's a brit.

and headhunter does get credit for hybridizing dubstep and juke? i don't think footcrab has anything whatever to do w/ dubstep. it doesn't use any characteristic dubstep sounds. if it wasn't made by headhunter and the tempo was 160 it would be a juke track - smoothed out imo because it loses the more challenging elements of juke e.g. vocal pitch shifts, suspended rhythms and nasty dark samples.

 

[dave quam]

And this thread just took a dive.

Footcrab has plenty of elements of dubstep in it, and I don't see how you can call it "smoothed out" and at the same time call Retail Juke amazing. Like what you want they're your ears but amazing? Those double/half time vocal loops are almost laughable.

Chrissy has been playing ghetto house and juke tracks for a while, he lives in Chicago and is from Kansas City MO. His remix of a Lemonade track was on XLR8R a couple weeks ago and it's dope. Steel drum footwork. He is def a big jungle head but he plays a lot of different stuff. Popped up on the juke stuff lately because he just went on tour with DJ Spinn in Europe, but he's done some juke tracks with guys too.


Fad TMB/Dro Carey is cool for sure. He's a youngin (17!) and already has a lot of great ideas.

NGUZUNGUZU have done some juke/footwork influenced tracks, but I dunno if they will ever release em. They are way into that stuff and used to live here, and I took one of them to a footwork battle about two months ago. Maybe they will surface someday.


Sorry for the self-promo, but I just put up a Traxman mix on my blog.

http://davequam.wordpress.com/2010/11/26/free-bass-mix-1-traxman-its-on/

 

[routes]

footcrab is way smooth (liquid grime lol), that held chord is all immersive and 'searching' when u hear it loud... (bit like that martyn remix on hessle)...not a vibe i get from any juke trax i've heard. and the production is so finely tuned, immaculately dutty... not raw and thrown-together-sounding.

 

[dave quam]

Also, Skwee, I'd like to hear your thoughts on why you think Retail Juke is less "watered down" than anything Girl Unit has done. I don't find anything Girl Unit does to be a hybrid at all. Even IRL is on it's own thing, it isn't even a homage to juke to these ears, just borrowed elements.

The guys that seriously fucking suck at this shit are the guys that make tracks about hood parties or try so hard to make footwork tracks that they think dancers out here will actually dance to, yet their tracks sound like they have never left their parents basement. I will name no names, but there are some tracks on Soundcloud that people should really be ashamed of, not just because they are garbage, but they are borderline racist.

 

[wise]

Really not feeling that Lemonade track, the steel drums sound really plastic, surprised you like that Dave, can you really imagine people footworking to that?
The Andrea tracks are just dull and far too long, they sound like 3 mediocre footwork tracks segued together. I didn't really get a Jungle or D&B vibe from them, like Neema said they just sound like average footwork.
I did like some of that Cedaa EP Dave posted on his blog a while back.
Also interesting to note from Daves RA piece about producers generally having at least one dancer in the studio and most of the original producers having been dancers at some point.
Maybe if you can't footwork, you can't produce good footwork tracks?
The feel of the music is just too rooted in the dance form

 

[mms]

i agree that hybridization is one way to make an interesting take on a sound - but it's by no means the only way. i find the andrea tracks more interesting than footcrab from a compositional and production point of view.

and as far as hybridication it also seems like a super convoluted argument to say that footcrab is a dubstep/juke hybrid - and therefore interesting, and andrea is a dnb/juke hybrid - but not interesting because it uses more elements from juke. and btw he doesn't get credit for the dnb side of the hybrid, that just comes because he's a brit.

and headhunter does get credit for hybridizing dubstep and juke? i don't think footcrab has anything whatever to do w/ dubstep. it doesn't use any characteristic dubstep sounds. if it wasn't made by headhunter and the tempo was 160 it would be a juke track - smoothed out imo because it loses the more challenging elements of juke e.g. vocal pitch shifts, suspended rhythms and nasty dark samples.

oh forget it, i wish i'd just kept it simple with my first answer.

 

[mms]

Really not feeling that Lemonade track, the steel drums sound really plastic, surprised you like that Dave, can you really imagine people footworking to that?
The Andrea tracks are just dull and far too long, they sound like 3 mediocre footwork tracks segued together. I didn't really get a Jungle or D&B vibe from them, like Neema said they just sound like average footwork.
I did like some of that Cedaa EP Dave posted on his blog a while back.
Also interesting to note from Daves RA piece about producers generally having at least one dancer in the studio and most of the original producers having been dancers at some point.
Maybe if you can't footwork, you can't produce good footwork tracks?
The feel of the music is just too rooted in the dance form

re: jungle feel -
it's just the type of samples and the way they're used
its not a hybrid juke juingle track - never said that, it's clearly straight up attempt at juke- it's just the samples automatically remind me of jungle rather than the way that the chicago guys use samples, to my ears anyway

Maybe this second point is right here -and a really interesting point too - and maybe this is what will keep Footwork from being easy to copy in a sense if the two things evolve together.

 

[mms]

footcrab is way smooth (liquid grime lol), that held chord is all immersive and 'searching' when u hear it loud... (bit like that martyn remix on hessle)...not a vibe i get from any juke trax i've heard. and the production is so finely tuned, immaculately dutty... not raw and thrown-together-sounding.

ok but its clearly influenced heavily by juke - the guy says so himself and you can hear it, it's dubstep speed and it takes elements of footwork - the bass and toms and the repeated vocal and shapes it into dubstep's template, you know i thought this was obvious, and pretty out in the open, and one of the talking points of this track and a few others like it - it seems ppl are weirdly in denial now.

 

[wise]

re: jungle feel - the samples automatically remind me of jungle rather than the way that the chicago guys use samples, to my ears.
.

I'll have to have another listen, cos I wasn't hearing that, mind you everyone always says this about Peverelist and I could never hear that either.......

 

[daddek]

authenticity games... ie easily the worst reason for liking a record.

it's only ever an issue if the artists are claiming or to be authentic, as dave alludes to. but girl unit & addison arent making any false claims, so there's simply isnt an issue there.

re jungle influence in footcrab & andrea (and pev).. there's semantic difficulties in what is meant by 'jungle'. i cant speak for mms, but for me it's not the rude / heavy attitudinal or rhythmic connotations of jungle are being transferred, but more that metalheadz-y, photek way of using samples & delay fx to create an spacey, melancholic feel. Like the blue note-y chords in footcrab or the key loop in that andrea track. The same aesthetic is in a lot of early dubstep & garage tunes, the kind of thing that gets called "deep" in the uk. *edit* just noticed mms already spoke on this :roll eyes:

 

[mms]

it's only ever an issue if the artists are claiming or to be authentic, as dave alludes to. but girl unit & addison arent making any false claims, so there's simply isnt an issue there.

re jungle influence in footcrab & andrea (and pev).. there's semantic difficulties in what is meant by 'jungle'. i cant speak for mms, but for me it's not the rude / heavy attitudinal or rhythmic connotations of jungle are being transferred, but more that metalheadz-y, photek way of using samples & delay fx to create an spacey, melancholic feel. Like the blue note-y chords in footcrab or the key loop in that andrea track. The same aesthetic is in a lot of early dubstep & garage tunes, the kind of thing that gets called "deep" in the uk. *edit* just noticed mms already spoke on this :roll eyes:

yes re: authenticity - yes i was alluding to andrea and trying to do a pretty straight up juke track, not just in claims but also as an aesthetic attempt something often seems to always go a bit wrong when this happens
like as i mentioned b12 and detroit - what happens when uk people try to do a direct copy of a US style of dance music is that it always seems to suffer from a certain amount of what the person who is trying to do a version of that style considers the best parts and the most authentic aesthetic elements of that music + their own musical baggage too.
This is occasionally good but usually comes off second best to my ears and throws up a few issues, while the most succesful versions are where uk dance music absorbs aesthetic elements or attitudes from other scenes and influences into their own speeds and grids, you just have to look at jungle itself for that etc.. speed garage, etc etc...it's always worked and created these good mutations.

 

[nnazem]

I like how you guys are debating the danceability of tracks in terms of it's juke aesthetics rather than whether it sounds good or not.

Oh yeah, I never said that the track was average, I never actually said anything about the track other than I wanted to hear what other people wanted to say about it.

 

[dave quam]

haha yeah, I dunno why you are surprised I like that Lemonade track, I definitely couldn't imagine anybody footworking to it but I'd be a weird motherfucker if that was the criteria for my taste in music. I thought it was a pretty cool track and wanted to point it out to the dude who asked about Chrissy, wasn't ravin. Also I'm sorta a sucker for steel drums.

 

[mms]

I like how you guys are debating the danceability of tracks in terms of it's juke aesthetics rather than whether it sounds good or not.

Oh yeah, I never said that the track was average, I never actually said anything about the track other than I wanted to hear what other people wanted to say about it.

thats not reaally what we're doing and - you know you're hearing what we think about it - as the subjects being debated.

i was wondering actually - what other music you like outside of juke as it goes?

 

[daddek]

I like how you guys are debating the danceability of tracks in terms of it's juke aesthetics rather than whether it sounds good or not.

i think whats happening people are listening to tunes, having a bunch of qualitative reactions to them.. dance-able, aesthetically interesting, emotionally engaging etc.. then having a conversation to work out whether the criteria for those good-bad reactions are fair, or misplaced.

debating whether something sounds good or not is genuinely pointless.

 

[daddek]

yes re: authenticity - yes i was alluding to andrea and trying to do a pretty straight up juke track, not just in claims but also as an aesthetic attempt something often seems to always go a bit wrong when this happens.

yep, when people outside of a locality based music try to emulate it authentically - they tend to end up with a limp version of it, as well as stagnate the original idea. It's like when uk people trying to authentically emulate hip hop.. you get shit student uk hip hop, which no one in america wants to hear.. whereas when uk people take an influence from timbaland and incoporate it into their own music (jungle & garage), you get grime.. which is actually of some use to american rap artists, not to mention everyone else, inspirationally.

re jungle influence.. im so familiar with it & its quite easy to put any genre along those deep/ liquidy rails.. i'm more inspired by the cracked out doomy bastardisations from salem and damscray.. its more radical and unhinged

of course people should follow their heart & inspirations tho. if martyn wants to do a juke inspired post dubstep liquid house thing, or andreas wants to write straight up chi town footwork, fair play

 

[dave quam]

"debating whether something sounds good or not is genuinely pointless"

Yep

 

[skweeelicious!]

The guys that seriously fucking suck at this shit are the guys that make tracks about hood parties or try so hard to make footwork tracks that they think dancers out here will actually dance to, yet their tracks sound like they have never left their parents basement. I will name no names, but there are some tracks on Soundcloud that people should really be ashamed of, not just because they are garbage, but they are borderline racist.

the absolute most egregious example of this is by the guy you said is "your dawg", cedaa on that track tiffany. talk about gluing on some ghetto attitude, holy shit. i wouldn't call it racist cos i don't think in those terms but it's exactly what you're talking about. it also makes no sense musically whatsoever.

 

[skweeelicious!]

oh forget it, i wish i'd just kept it simple with my first answer.

what the fuck is wrong with you holmes? the tone of your posts is harsh as a mutherfucker but you don't like what someone else says and all you can say is "retarded" like a goddamn 5 year old.