Chicago footwork master DJ Taye invokes the rapid pace of our changing times on Pyrot3kLeor Galilon May 8, 2020 at 7:22 pm

Pop music moves fast: new instructional-dance songs, new Drake songs, and new instructional-dance songs by Drake can bombard the zeitgeist one week and all but evaporate the next. Footwork, the lightning-fast Chicago-born house subgenre, is well suited to capture that frenetic pace. Young footwork master and Teklife member DJ Taye instinctively understands how to combine footwork’s adrenaline rush with the pop’s euphoric glee to build tracks with a distinctive energy. Last month he self-released Pyrot3k, the third entry in the Pyrotek mixtape series he launched in October. On the latest volume–also available in a deluxe version called Pyrot3k (SS)–he focuses on blissful melodies and antsy samples. On “Gang,” for example, he loops a snippet of JackBoys’ “Gang Gang” into a hypnotic koan at a speed that makes the original sound like it’s stuck in the mud. Several of Taye’s friends, including Teklife members DJ Earl and Heavee, join in on the fun, and I’m especially partial to his collaboration with Night Slugs label owner James Connolly, aka L-Vis 1990. On “Parade Float,” the two producers whimsically intertwine Morse code beeps and battering-ram gabber-style kick drum to manifest a cartoonish energy that seems to gather itself and balloon outward during the song’s tiny silences. v

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