So those guys over at Planet Mu have been championing the footwork / juke sound over in Europe for a while now as we explained in our Juke feature last year.

Well now they have got a Footwork tour starting tomorrow and hitting a city near you very soon with a formidable line-up of DJ Rashad, DJ Spinn, Chrissy Murderbot and a whole gang of footwork dancers (yes!!).

Catch them at:
21/04/2011 Thursday UK Brighton, Jam
22/04/2011 Friday France Paris, Batofar
23/04/2011 Saturday Switzerland Geneva, Electron Festival
28/04/2011 Thursday UK Leeds, The Wardrobe
29/04/2011 Friday UK London, The Big Chill Bar (Chrissy Only album launch)
29/04/2011 Friday UK London, Village Underground
30/04/2011 Saturday UK London, Sadler Wells (Dancers Only) http://www.breakinconvention.com/breakin-convention-2011/line with repeat performance monday and a discussion panel too.
06/05/2011 Friday BE Antwerp @ Petrol
07/05/2011 Saturday UK London, Corsica as part of planet mu night
11/05/2011 Wednesday DE Berlin, Get Wavey at Magnet Club (Chrissy Only)
13/05/2011 Friday UK Camber Sands, Butlins, Bangface Weekender
14/05/2011 Saturday UK Manchester, The Deaf Institute

We have a pair of tickets to give to the Village Underground show in London, the Leeds show at The Wardrobe, and the Antwerp show at Petrol.

To win, simply tell us your best dance move and why. Answers to be sent to info@bleep.com.

To celebrate all this lovely footwork footy-ness, we have reduced a bunch of the major footwork releases to a brilliant price so head over to the Planet Mu page on Bleep to get yourself some bargain footwork albums.

forthcoming on Planet Mu and playing at the Bleep stage at Bloc Festvial 2011.

This features as part of our special Juke House Feature including 3 limited period digital samplers for £1 each; writing on the genre from Planet Mu’s Mike Paradinas and Ghettophiles’ Chrissy Murderbot; “Best of Juke” charts from some of Chicago’s leading DJs; and brand new digital catalogue previously unavailable digitally.

“I’d been aware of Chicago ghetto house and the Dance Mania label’s releases since the early 1990s, and indeed owned many records of that era from artists such as DJ Funk, DJ Deeon and Parris Mitchell but i’d lost touch at the end of that decade as the records stopped getting imported into the UK, and indeed stopped getting pressed altogether. I’d also heard of Chicago Juke (as ghetto house came to be known) but the little I had heard sounded very similar to Ghettotech (and even B-More club), with a steady 4/4 kick and bouncy party feel, which personally didn’t excite my musical bits.

Then in late 2008 and early ‘09, thanks to the recommendation of a friend, via Youtube, Jamglue and Imeem (the latter two now sadly defunct) I started hearing something which, to me, sounded very different; still called Juke, but somehow the party atmosphere had gone and along with it, the 4/4 kick. This was a music infused with dread, dreamlike layered and repetitive vocals, a pulsing sub-bass.. sounds and samples taken from pop, hip-hop and r&b were pitched up and down and repeated reminding me of hardcore and early jungle’s first, more primitive, experiments with sampling in the early 90s. Obviously Chicago’s producers had never heard, or at least never been influenced by UK Jungle but the parallels seem to be there to me, in the use of sub-bass and helium vocals, repetition and chopped up samples and the increasing tempo (160bpm) meaning the switch to half-speed rhythms started happening. This seemed to me to be analogous to when, around ‘93 the sped up rush of hardcore’s 150-160bpm breakbeats mutated into jungle and as the tempo kept increasing, the dread basslines started to emphasise the slower 80/90bpm interpretation of the track; or when between 2004 and 2005 2-step garage and early (horsepower) dubstep’s skippiness mutated gradually into the ‘half-step’ of Digital Mystikz and Loefah.

This newer (newer to me) sound was being described as Footworking music or ‘Foot Wurk’ and was accompanied by rapid-fire below-waist dance moves. Watching the videos and hearing the dance & music in combination made far more sense.

Before reading any further may I suggest you listen to a mix of my own ‘footwork favourites’ that I did a couple of months or so back to see whether you like the genre, it contains many tracks I’ve licensed for the upcoming Footwork compilation on Planet Mu:

Footwork dancing has a long history in Chicago being around since at least the mid 80s, one of the first and most famous Footwork groups was House-O-Matics, and weekly footwork events happen on Sundays at Walacam’s “Warzone” party and “Battlegroundz” both on Chicago’s westside. But I’m personally more interested in the evolution of the music, so forgive me if i ignore the dancers, the YPS, Heat Squad, Terra Squad etc… and concentrate on the music. It’s more my area, and I’m well aware that the footwork dance drove the evolution of the music and vice versa.

The pioneer of Footwork (for brevity’s sake when I say ‘footwork’ from now on I am referring to the particular style of juke music, rather than the dance) was RP Boo (aka Arpebu, Record Player Boo). He was one of the first to produce tracks in the ‘half-speed’ footwork style with the signature Juke tom, and clave sounds in offbeat syncopated patterns, often in triplets. DJ Clent was also an early innovator in beat patterns, but RP’s trax have an otherworldly quality which I love. Here is a link to an interview with RP by Dave Quam from his excellent blog It’s After The End Of The World

RP Boo – Total Darkness

The repetitive looped vocals of which ‘Total Darkness’ is almost entirely made give the track a dream-like hypnotic intensity.

RP Boo – Eraser

Taking a sample of Wings and making it one of the darkest tracks i’ve heard.

RP Boo – Steam Midity

These tracks are all from about 2007.

The DJs Rashad (Harden) and Spinn (Morris Harper) From GetoTeknitianz are pretty much the undisputed kings of Footwork Djing. Here is a video of Rashad DJing at a footwork event (Battlegroundz I Think?). Rashads trax are full of tight funk and very on-point and danceable rhythms. A couple of tracks below:

DJ Rashad – Drop Juke Out

Very hip hop feel in the half speed syncopations here… again the hypnotic repetitive vox give the track a great feel, one of my favourites from the Juke Trax label, which I believe will soon be available on Bleep.

DJ Rashad – Itz Not Rite

Here Rashad cuts up the track making one of the most abstract footwork rhythms yet out of the space between the samples, masterpiece. This is the lead track on Rashad’s forthcoming Planet Mu EP.

Another popular DJ is DJ Roc (Clarence Johnson), whose ‘Bosses of the circle’ crew were on of the first (so he tells me) to start selling cd mixtapes of Footwork and Juke mixes. His style is somewhere between the straight Juke and Footwork styles. I cannot find much DJ Roc on youtube, but there are quite a few of his older more juke style tracks on DJ Slugo’s Subterranean Playhouse label and he has a release forthcoming in a couple of months on planet mu.

DJ Roc – Let Me Go mixed into P.A.N.I.C.

There is also a style which has been referred to as “Bedroom Juke”. Lots of tracks posted on youtube by self-styled “DJs” such as DJ Nate meaning producer in this case as I’m pretty sure Nate can’t DJ, but these guys (and some girls such as DJ Ga Ga aka Jerrilynn Patton) wanted to get involved with the scene but had varying levels of success in acheiving popularity and many have gone on to pursue careers in hiphop rapping and production. These ‘Bedroom juke’ or ‘Youtube Juke’ tracks have tended to be a little more abstract and plentiful with tom fills and off kilter rhythms. These were very popular among the younger generation in high school, and mixtapes were passed around class.

DJ Nate – give dat man room

DJ Nate – time

Another guy who made footwork and is now producing hip hop under the name ‘DJ Spacey” is DJ Trouble (aka Prentice Livingston) whose trax have a lot of style and emotion:

DJ Trouble – fuck em up

DJ Trouble – Bangs & Works

DJ Tha Pope is “Chicago’s youngest celebrity” and presents on channel 19. I can’t find his best tracks on youtube, but here are a couple of good ones:

Tha Pope – one blood

Tha Pope – Everybody Bob

and finally…
DJ Elmoe – whea yo ghost at

You’ll hear a lot more of the goodness when Planet Mu release their Foot Wurk compilation “Bangs & Wurks” early next year. In the meantime we’ve got releases from DJ Nate, DJ Roc and DJ Rashad before the end of the year.”

Mike Paradinas

Editor’s Note: We changed the title of this post from “Mike Paradinas Introduces Juke House” to “Mike Paradinas Introduces Juke”…

We was unaware that “Juke House” means a brothel house in some parts of the world!

Ceephax has a new album on Planet Mu. So we decided to talk to him about some stuff…

Who did the artwork for “United Acid Emirates” and describe the thinking behind it?
I did the artwork. It was inspired a bit by Arabic music cassette tape covers that are often quite garish and colourful. The background carpet and picture were photographed in amusement arcades which are one of the main places that have shaped me and my music. The TB-303 flying carpet ties in the arabic theme with the acid tunes! Basically a collage of some of my influences done in an eye-catching and appealing mess.

What is your studio set-up and what process do you normally go through to make a song?
Here’s a pic of my studio, mainly analogue synths and drum machines (pictured below). Normally I make a tune in a minute or two, have the bassline, chords and stuff ready in less than an hour, but if I want it to be a more developed and sound good then I spend a few days or sometimes a week or more fiddling about and turning it from a good idea into something that is a piece of music and not just a quick jam, whilst trying to retain the magic of those first few creative minutes which at the end remain the most important thing no matter what you add to it. Sometimes this works, and sometimes you lose the magic which is sad. This album is a mix between tracks that I put loads of work into and some spontaneous stuff that was made in minutes.

Tell us the most surreal / crazy gig you have had?
I think one of the strangest gigs was in Bern in Switzerland where I was on tour with 3 of my mate musicians. It was in a sort of tiny underground library squat (?) with books lining the walls and a balcony that ran all around and the stage underneath, so that most of the audience were looking down on you. Anyway we managed to get so drunk on gin and whatever else that we were flailing and falling about the stage and tiny dancefloor and playing absolutely terribly whilst the rather serious crowd looked down on us from the balcony as if we were some kind of curious new exhibit at a victorian zoo freshly imported from the Congo…well that’s what it felt like at the time. It was great fun though, possibly at the audience and organizer’s expense !

What is the best video game ever and why?
Asteroids is probably the best arcade game for me, as it’s non completable and random in such a nice way..It looks amazing too because of the Vector graphics that you can’t recreate on a cathode or LCD screen. I don’t agree with lurking though. Best home computer game..Turrican on the c64. So massive at the time, so deep, I consider it a work of art as incredible as any famous symphony or painting.

What’s next for Ceephax?
At the moment I’m concentrating on videos for my music as film/video has been something I have wanted to get into for years. It completes the Ceephax experience…

Remote Location was established in 2007 as a creative technology & communication studio by Adam Rodgers and Neil Morton. Both are from Glasgow, UK originally and worked together on a few projects, including stuff for Warp and Numbers, before starting Remote Location. They are now based in Spitalfield, in the east of London.

Focusing on fresh design, concept & production, they collaborate with their network of creative and technical specialists when approaching projects and realising ideas.

Recent stuff they’ve produced includes the Hudson Mo Butterstar Galactica game for Warp (collab with Thomas Traum and Mike Tucker), record art for Darkstar on Hyperdub and Neil Landstrumm on Planet Mu (Vice’s worst cover of the month), and an identity & website for blackmaps.

Forthcoming creations include a site and sleeves for their sister company Numbers, sleeve art for the new Fabric comp, new identity & online home for Rubadub, a site design for Samurai FM, working with Craig Armstrong, and of course further developments of Warp.net.

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Art direction + design for the latest Neil Landstrumm LP on Planet μ Records. Head-dress & breakfast vibes. Photography by Sam Robinson

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Butter Star Galactica. Produced in collaboration with Thomas Traum & Mike Tucker for the Hudson Mohawke LP ‘Butter’ on Warp Records.

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Marks for Rubadub Records & blackmaps

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New website for Warp’s Music, Films and Records companies. Created in collaboration with Universal Everything.

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Screen-printed & Lazer-etched graphics for various Rustie EPs on Stuffrecords & Wireblock. Bad Science EP designed in collaboration w/ Konx-Om-Pax.

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Numbers. Identity for Glasgow based events company / record label.

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Graphics for Darkstar’s EP on Hyperdub – inspired by the Monolith from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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Destroy! Arcade style game to promote Flying Lotus and his LP ‘Los Angeles’.

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Some sketches

Wild Angels from LuckyMe on Vimeo.

featuring Hudson Mohawke, Floating Points, Mark Pritchard, Mike Slott, Rustie, Starkey, Nosaj Thing and Joker to name a few… compiled by Mary Anne Hobbs.

Available soon on Bleep.com