Electronic music loves the genre game.
Whenever a beat goes out of place, some pundit will pop up to add a suffix or prefix to something which was invented a matter of weeks ago. But are we really in a situation where something can be dubbed post-footwork?
The Chicago has become a cause celebre in some quarters, with the rapid-fire beats of Footwork infiltrating British bass. Yet somehow it seems that the bedroom phroducers of America has taken the sheer strangeness of Footwork one step further.
Take Slava. The producer’s new ‘Soft Control’ EP on Software – run by Daniel Lopatin doncha know – bonds Footwork aesthetics to something rather more down at heel. This isn’t designed to provoke some South Side club – this is about hallucinogenic vocals, samples pushed to the edge and rhythms that don’t let up.
Take ‘I’ve Got Feelings Too’. Slava removes a single vocal sample – pop song or spoken word – and repeats it until the actual words lose all meaning. The sounds of the voice slip all over the beats, fragmenting into something affecting, shattering until something which borders on an illusion.
The directness of Footwork is pushed until it becomes almost inverted, with the final bass implosions pulling ‘I’ve Got Feelings Too’ deep into the ground. Decayed, fragmented, faltering Slava moves within the slipstream of Footwork influence without ever simply repeating the Chicago soundtrack.
Post-Footwork.
Listen to it now…
