PLANET JUKE

Footwork tracks are instrumental tracks made for Footwurking, or Jukin'; a dance style that’s local to Chicago that kids use to let off steam in group competitions with each other. It’s a distant relative of the competitive hip hop style of up-rocking but with frantic foot moves that have their roots in Jazz dancing. The Footwork sound has its roots in Chicago House especially the accelerated ‘Ghetto’ house, and the influence and speed of the pioneering Ghetto house label 'Dance Mania' is clear: the tough sentiments and hip hop influence is all there, but the fast linear hypnotic 4x4 sound of those records has been re-calibrated and given an ultra-syncopated treatment to test dancers, the samples and repeated lines are pitch adjusted up and down giving the music a strange hypnotic feel. These tracks have a unique drama and a pressure that is unique to Footwork but reminiscent of the edited drum syncopation of jungle and also hip hop cutting in DJ battles. 

[μ]