Atlanta bass music producer Distal makes stuff that's heavy, often skeletal, occasionally lush, and usually a little glitchy. The spazzier tendencies come off a bit more cheeky than aggressive. These tracks are bit busier than his (excellent) album from a couple years ago ("Civilization"), but the chaos is well managed. It's a concept album about a future space civilization, but it's all instrumental, so don't worry too much about that. This whole album is great, but unfortunately the promoter only made four tracks available in high enough quality (320 kbps mp3) to be worth burning for the library (the rest of the stream was 80 kbps). Luckily, they are four of the best tracks on the album (no duds here, though #1 might be a little short to stand on its own).

RIYL: Addison Groove, DJ Rashad (might satisfy similar cravings even though it's not footwork), bass music with hip-hop and glitch influences

1: appropriately spacey synth melody with a slight ring and rising hiss in the background. that all winds down around 1:00, beeps signal a change up, and a frantic synth bass comes in. static-y glow for the last 10 seconds. 1:55
2: jumpy clapping beat. chopped vocals ("stopstopstop", "dialact: scripture fixture fixture fixture fixture"). synth strings enter around 1:15. lasers and springs and a touch of 808 cowbell. video game bleeps come and go. some 808 snare rolls starting around halfway through. this description makes it sound like a total mess, but it's actually well put together and totally works. 4:50
3: more jumpy cut up madness and propulsive 808 drums. starts with chilly swaying synth washes, but later swaps that for a growling pulsating bassline. stuttery snares in the second half. 3:56
4: ticky cymbal and woodblock open and give way to 4/4 kick and descending glowing synth. chopped female syllables. kicks switch between 4/4 and breakier programming throughout. kicks get overdriven and distorted around 1:20, then go back to normal after a bit. subtle bleeps and bloops enter around 1:45. overdrive on the kicks again at 3:15. ends on synth wash and cymbals. melancholy. could work equally well in headphones or on the dancefloor. 5:30

recommended: 4, 2