Podcast 17
22.05.2024
This mix by Berlin-based Turkish artist DJ Strawberry showcases some of the recent musical developments in footwork —the frenetic, ultra-syncopated dance form for superhumans born out of ghetto house— mainly in its minimal expression. This puzzle built with four CDJs also illustrates part of the catalogue of the Wroclaw-based label Outlines (Chicago is sometimes referred to as the American Warsaw), one of the most interesting in the genre today.
Indeed, the main idea of the mix is based on the concept of “cycles” developed by this algorave artist in the records he has released on the Polish label, “consisting of simple loops interlocking to each other to create complex structures.” In a sense, this footwork perspective functions like the museum-like abstractions of techno in the nineties, in such a way that it deepens the second term of the funk/machinic (or post-funk), dance/contemplation, analogue/digital binomials, and it is here that the second idea of the mix emerges, that is, the linear or algorithmic directionality, together with the forms of the craggy rocky geographical features of the canyons or mountains of Japan, inspiration of the percussive genre gorge, present here in its raw, distorted and noisy expressions.
Cover by TIAR9009.