footwork/acid/breaks/IDM

Veteran Chicago DJ/producer (DJing since age 10, first single released in 96 @ 15). This is her debut album, after a decade+ hiatus from the music world (parents pressured her to get a "real" job, she's currently a chem engineer by day and radiology tech by night). This album is detailed and deftly assembled, pulling from a range of electronic dance music and melding it naturally around the footwork skeleton that is the unifying thread. Often frenetic, sometimes chill, but always funky, and keeps the groove throughout. The JLin comparison is the easy one (both female footwork producers from the midwest), but DJ Clent is the most similar artist I can think of.

RIYL: DJ Clent, Ramadanman, DJ Taye, DJ Rashad, John FM, JLin

recommended: 7, 3, 6, 11

FCCs: 9

1. breathy dark synth winds over rubbery percussive bassline, ticky woodblocks, snares build tension 3:19
2. fighting game announcer type sample, punchy kicks, sandpaper textures, irregular polyrhythmic synth woodblocks 2:45
3. stuttery clicks floating in dusky aquatic tones, layers of ambience ebb and flow, hats and snares and smudgy rumbles of bass drift in and out. starts to glitch up occasionally around the mid-point. 5:44
4. high synth winds, echo-y snares, low low rapid bass pulses, rattling hi hats. swinging chopped piano and horn runs in the second half. brightest thing so far, upbeat but not quite manic. 3:27
5. half-time sinister syllable sample and bass pulse, snare rolls, kicks flip back and forth between half-time and regular tempo, vocal sample chopped and sometimes smeared across the bars. kicks get a little fuller and more upfront in the mix toward the end. 3:28
6. anxious staticy squelch and drums settled down a bit into acid melody over stuttery drums and bass pulses. slippery, propulsive. cymbals and snare cracks come in to add a bit of drive, bass pulses keep shifting tone and pattern, snares occasionally get insistent. 4:31
7. chopped soul sample, unintelligible, cracking snares, kick pulses slip in and out, cymbals start rolling later, vocal samples shift to something more ecstatic, insistent. occasionally slows to catch its breath, never loses its cool even when it's driving. occasional subdued pitched 808 cowbell blips. abrupt end. prob my favorite. 3:32
8. vocal samples and truncated snares flicker, shift range, short fragments of synth pad too. hints of manic preaching, maybe? later, slightly plaintive female vocal samples and super pitched down vocal fragments. 3:38
9. FCC: "fuck" (repeatedly). kick and snare lead off, rising chiptune buzz, kick turns into dry low bass pulse as claps come and go. "what the fuck you sayin?" short sample (and then chopped to something wordless). synth buzz melody gets mostly keeps the same noets but gets its parameters manipulated, texture changes, gets filtered, flits in and out. 3:08
10. video game bleeps and punchy kicks and little undulations ratchet up in tension, till other percussive elements slot in, alternately smoothing out the and making it feel even spazzier. drums drop out occasionally for rolling bassy undulations. 3:03
11. real chill, as per the title. whispy echoey night time sounds over rapid bass pulses, but no kicks, and the other percussion that flits in and out is very restrained and subdued. 3:50
12. also on the chiller side, despite the title. the snare is definitely frenetic, but the low-key melody line keeps it chill, and the snare's rather quiet in the mix anyway. a nice hopeful closer, dusky. 3:02