Premiere: B-Ju & Ticklish – “Dualities”

As footwork has proliferated across the globe in the past decade, its borders have shifted and mutated, merging with jungle, acid and other dance forms. Unlike other localized sub-cultures that are rapidly engulfed in the global market, footwork’s mutations have been driven first and foremost by the Chicago’s Teklife collective and not American and/or European producers with no tangible connection to the Windy City’s musical lineage or dance culture. So after an initial explosion and some unfortunate attempts by outsiders to replicate the sound, it appears that the replication process has slowed and global producers have begun to work upon and expand on the ideas set forth by DJ Rashad, Spinn, Earl and more. Residing in Hamburg and Berlin respectively, B-Ju and Ticklish are prime examples of that cycle, artists well outside of the Chicago orbit who have, nonetheless, become adept at soothing the uneasiness of the footwork sound into their own production aesthetics. On Tuesday, February 24, B-Ju and Ticklish will release a joint effort, the Dualities EP on Druid Cloak’s Apothecary Compositions, melding their prowess in footwork, jungle and other hybrid forms across two collaborations and several remixes. Today, we’ve got the title track from the EP, highlighting the duo’s ability to flip dusty breaks into a soulful melange that dazzles as much as it soothes. Pre-order Dualities on cassette here and get a download of the full EP immediately.