At first listen you might thing that Chrissy Murderbot‘s Friendship was a departure from his tongue-in-cheek take on juke and footwork, making our feet skit and our sides split. Taking cues from the worlds of downtempo house and minimal techno, you’d be forgiven for thinking Chrissy had gone all serious on us. That is, until you take a look at the tracklist.
Though there are only two original tracks (backed up by two splendid remixes from KOTJ contributor Legowelt and SumSun), they both have the kind of titles that only Chrissy would give. The first is ‘Bionic Penguin’, followed by ‘Friendship’. Hardly thugged out-ghetto music, but undeniably danceable.
Ultimately, this is a footwork record, but it’s one that sees Murderbot’s sound evolve, drawing influences from UK bass and the revamped techno scenes. While you might not instantly recognise it as a Murderbot record, the rattling tom toms and chopped-and-skewed vocals take it beyond the Chicago city limits. One can tell that he knows better than anyone that a sound defined by the city it comes from will ultimately have a limited lifespan.
The highlight of the record is most definitely the title track – a skittish, ghetto footwork number with an emphasis on tom toms, but with a new element: screwed up vocals that dance and glide quite elegantly. Like I say, it’s exciting to hear a producer with such a varied sound and musical history develop his repertoire.
The ‘Friendship’ EP comes out July 1 on Halocyan. You can preorder the EP here.
