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Bass Music Mix 29 - Chrissy Murderbot

September 12

photo by Stuart Leech

This week, we've got a new mix for our bass music mix series from the man like Chrissy Murderbot from Chicago. 2011 has been pretty busy for him, touring & promoting juke all over US and Europe with DJ Rashad and also releasing his album, "Women's Studies" on Planet Mu. Murderbot has been in the game for years now, I was a fan of his ragga jungle productions on Mashit back in 2005 and he's also known for having made a mixtape a week on his blog during 2009 and 2010. Chrissy was kind enough to take some time in his mad schedule to answer few questions and deliver a massive bumbooclaat mix!!

So, please introduce yourself - who are you and what do you do?

I am Chrissy Murderbot. I am a DJ/Producer living in Chicago, making and playing lots of different kinds of fun, forward-thinking party music.

What's the deal with this mix? Is it the kind of set you'd play in a club?

This mix is definitely the type of set I would play in a club, albeit shortened a little. I like to start out with something slower and build up to faster / more energetic types of music. I get really bored by DJs who just play one tempo for their entire set...

So what have you been up to lately? The past few months seem to have been very busy for you...

Been INSANELY busy. Lots of remix work, lots of mixtapes, still promoting my album Women's Studies on Planet Mu, about to drop my new EP, I'm A Asshole, on my own Loose Squares imprint, as well as releasing new EPs from DJ Lil'Tal (on Loose Squares) and James Braun (on Loose Squares's sister label, Sleazetone). Also about to head on tour with Machinedrum, followed by a West Coast tour with EPROM in October and a solo European tour in December.

You run the label Loose Squares - can you tell us about it? What's the thinking behind it?

There's two labels--Loose Squares and Sleazetone. Loose Squares is an outlet for fun, uptempo booty music. Sleazetone is more on the deep-house-meets-bass-music tip. I suppose the uniting thread in both of them is that they are tunes I feel really strongly about, and that kind of connect the dots between UK dance music culture and Midwestern house, ghetto house, juke, techno, etc.

You're putting out this new EP of remixes of a juke/footwork classic, “Pop Yo Back” from DJ Lil'Tal. Can you tell us more about it?

That's the next Loose Squares release. It's this CLASSIC juke/footwork tune here in Chicago called "Pop Yo Back"...one of those trax that is absolutely legendary around here but has never had a real proper release. We've got some awesome remixes from Squire of Gothos, Star Eyes (from Trouble & Bass), Sonido Rampage y Nader (from Ghetto Division and T&A), Mister Ries, and Kaptain Cadillac. Very diverse takes on this track...I'm really excited about it!

Speaking about juke, what came first, juke the dance, or juke the music? Can the two be understood separately? Will we see dancefloors globally adopting their own kind of juke dancing?

Well this is a big misunderstanding--a lot of people confuse juke and footwork. When you talk about "juke" the dance, that's basically just freak dancing, or fuck dancing, or grinding, or whatever you wanna call it. Anybody can juke. It's just instinctual and everybody is born with that ability. Footwork is different--that's the really crazy stuff you see in youtube videos from footwork battles and stuff like that. And in terms of the music, Juke music is just a faster, more modern version of Ghetto House. Footwork is the stuff that evolved from juke specifically for the footworkers--the tracks with the really sideways rhythms, halftime claps, etc. Footwork dancing has been around since before footwork music really existed as a thing, but they both kind of evolve together and inform how the other will develop.

What is the actual difference between juke and jit, and do Chicagoans hate jit?

There is no hate. Chicago has a lot of love for Detroit and vice versa--so many great musicians in both places. As for jit, it is another really footwork-oriented dance, but it comes from Detroit. The dances are very similar, and they evolved from the same kind of dances that came up from the South with all the African-American immigrants to Chicago and Detroit in the 1910s and 1920s. They really are very similar in concept, there's just a lot of moves that are different and stylistic kinda stuff like that. I'm not a footworker so I'm the wrong guy to ask. As far as the music goes, footwork dancers dance to footwork music, and jit goes with ghettotech. Ghettotech is a lot more four-on-the-floor, more high-energy I guess, and has a lot more of that Detroit flavor. You will never see a Detroit dude jitting to some track with halftime claps and a completely off-the-wall rhythm like in footwork music, but in Chicago that's the type of stuff the dancers prefer. They'll get pissed if you give 'em 15 minutes of four-on-the-floor kick drums. Again, neither of these scenes are really my thing...I'm more about dance parties and people on the dancefloor having fun than I am about competitive dance battle stuff.

Which artists are you really feeling at the moment?

Machinedrum, Jumping Back Slash, Cardopusher, Pacheko, Walton, Juketastrafe, DJ Lil'Tal, James Braun, Submerse, Seiji, MC ZULU, Atki2, Hanuman, Baobinga, DJ Nehpets, Big Dope P, Trustus, Eprom, Famous Eno, Africa Hitech, Om Unit, Murlo, Slick Shoota, Aquadrop, Kush Arora, Akira Kitechi, Trim, TRC, DOK, Julio Bashmore, Funkystepz, TWR72.

Any others things you want to add, biggups etc ?

If you like this, go buy my music!

http://www.murderbot.com
http://www.loosesquares.com
http://www.facebook.com/mrdrbt

Bass Music Mix 29 - Chrissy Murderbot by Bass Music on Mixcloud

Bass Music Mix 29 - Chrissy Murderbot by bassmusic

TRACKLIST:
Jumping Back Slash - Shosholozaaaaaa! (unreleased)
James Braun - ID (forthcoming Sleazetone)
Kill Light - Dumbo (LU10 Records)
P Money - Blackberry (Butterz)
Chrissy Murderbot & Johnny Moog - I'm a Asshole (forthcoming Loose Squares)
Cycheouts Ghost - CHG2 (ROMZ)
Cardopusher - Everybody (forthcoming DVA Music)
Traxman - Who Needs Forever (unreleased)
Clicks & Whistles with Cedaa - Topaz Bounce
Juketastrafe - Work Baby (forthcoming Loose Squares)
Squire of Gothos - Big Yellow Smiley Faces (Rag & Bone)
A Guy Called Gerald - This Is The Right Time (Juice Box)
Cloud 9 - Call My Name (Movin Shadow)
DJ Lil'Tal - Pop Yo Back (Mister Ries Remix) (forthcoming Loose Squares)
Chrissy Murderbot & DJ Gant-Man - I Nutted In You (forthcoming Loose Squares)
Nocturnal - Stay Down The Road (Murlo Roadmix) (unreleased)
Yo Soy Sauce - Chrissy Murderbot Bootybusted Remix
Chrissy Murderbot - Friendship (forthcoming Halo Cyan)
DJ Diamond - Rep Yo Clique (Remix) (Planet Mu)
Eprom - Twerkul8 (unreleased)
unknown
Slick Shoota - Love You You You (unreleased)
Chrissy Murderbot - Braaain (Planet Mu)

Filed under // Bass Music Chicago Planet Mu bassline chrissy Murderbot dubstep juke loose squares

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Producer Q&A - Starkey

This week, we got Philly's number one knob-twiddler and purveyor of synth-heavy 140bpm turbo-crunk, Starkey, to answer our penetrating and probing Producer Q&As.

If you want to know more about what Starkey does, check his excellent recent mix for Fact Magazine, or head here and bless yourself with some vinyl. Currently working on his second album for Planet Mu, while still prepping singles and remixes for our friends over at Rwina, Starkey has carved out a highly-respected niche for his distinctive sound, much like a woodpecker carves out a niche for its nest. But different.

How do you approach a tune? Drums first? Melody?

Hmmmm... It's different for every tune. But I'd say usually i lay down some sort of basic drum groove with a melody or bassline in my head, then always go back and revise it. I find it's easier to lay down that melody or bassline with something other than a click track in place. On my phone, there's lots of little snippets of ideas that I'll think of during the day - I'll just sing them into the recorder and play them back when I get into the studio.

What time of day do you work best?

It's all about the daytime for me right now. When I was starting out producing, I was in college and would work from like 7pm-3am every day almost. But now, it's all about the sessions from noon-6pm or thereabouts.

Where do you get your inspiration / motivation from?

Everything really - other people's music, movies, the city I live in... Any type of artist pulls from their surroundings and everything contributes to their output. Making music is exciting to me. When I sit down to work on something I never give myself any boundaries or rules to follow. I don't say, 'I need to make a chill tune today', or 'I need to make a banger' - it's just whatever comes out really.

What do you do when you're not feeling inspired?

I usually have something I need to get done, so I trudge through it. But if I'm really not feeling it that day, I'll just turn the computer off and do something relaxing. Could be anything really - watch TV, catch a movie, maybe cook up a good meal.

Do you start a tune from scratch, or do you usually have a drumset/template/etc to work from?

Unless I'm doing a remix, I always start from scratch. I literally start with nothing on the screen. I find that people who start with templates, even if it's their own custom thing, their music all starts to sound the same. It's cool to have some kind of signature sound or feel - actually it's essential - but you don't want tunes to be re-hashed old ones.

If you got a chance would you write pop stuff for a major label (if the money was good?)

Yes, definitely. I'm big into mainstream hiphop and r&b right now. I love what's going on. I really hope to be doing some of this in the near future.

What's the boring, workhorse plugin/piece of kit that you use all the time?

I'm not sure if it's boring, but I use the EXS24 and Ultrabeat (from Logic) on pretty much every track. But they're just samplers, so they're only as boring as the samples you put in them.

What's the coolest bit of kit you've got and do you actually use it much?

I have a Roland Juno 60 which is pretty nice. I don't use it as often as I should, but it's right there above my Korg N1, which I use every day.

Do you mixdown your own stuff? Reckon there's a stigma around this?

For now, yes. I also do most of my own mastering for digital releases, as well as the Seclusiasis and Slit Jockey stuff. Mixing is all about knowing your room and monitors, and understanding EQ and compression. If you have that down, you can produce quality mixes. Yeah I'd love to go to a big studio and use tons of outboard gear on my tracks, but it's expensive, and the results are usually sub-par, because you're put in an environment where you don't feel as comfortable and don't necessarily understand the monitors and the acoustics of the space. When I moved my studio last year, it took me a good 3 months to fully understand what was happening in that space and feel comfortable with a mixdown I did in there.

What production technique do you think is really overused / annoying?

This is probably pretty stupid, but I hate it when uninteresting synths or samples pan back and forth from left to right. Like I'm talking dry boring panning. I hate that.

What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started out?

I think the most important aspects of making a record sound good are understanding how to distribute tones across the frequency spectrum and control the bass so that it sounds equally good on iPod headphones and in the club. These are things I work on all the time, that when I first started producing I didn't quite have a grasp on. The mix needs to jump out of the speakers.... U GET ME!??!!

Cheers Starkey!

*********************************

Binga.

Filed under // Planet Mu Producer Q&A Rwina Starkey

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Bass Music Mix 29 - Chrissy Murderbot

Producer Q&A - Starkey