Space Zone is the debut album from 18-year-old David Davis, aka Young Smoke. The Chicago-based producer is inextricably tied to his hometown's faster-than-fast and repetitive genre of footwork; Davis is one of the producers linked with Chicago's Flight Musik collective, which is headed up by DJ Diamond, who issued a solid footwork album under that name on UK label Planet Mu. That imprint has spent the last several years making a case for footwork as a genre that transcends functional dance music, in part through their Bangs & Works compilation series; Davis contributed two songs, "Psycho War" and "Wouldn't Get Far", to last year's second installment. Both fit nicely within footwork's sonic constraints; the former is all cinematic strings and maniacal metallic-popcorn percussion, while the latter rides an inspired vocal lick and throws it through various levels of filter.
Given his background, it's understandable to think of Davis as a footwork producer, but Space Zone is something different. The record finds Davis using the genre as a launchpad into weirder territory. The brown-sound frequencies and tightly looped rhythms are still present, but they're placed lower in the mix to dampen their intensity. On a few tracks, you barely notice that they're there at all. Space Zone also shows that Davis has a neon-streaked sense of humor. The title track features a warm, melodic voice intoning, "Welcome to the space zone," as lasers and video-game explosions bounce off of rubbery walls. Elsewhere, you get claustrophobic klaxons, blastoff noises, launchpad countdowns, and robotic voices issuing warnings about "countermeasures." After a particularly stoner-friendly run of cuts on the album's backend, a more traditional footwork number arrives in the form of "High Den a Mother Fucka". Its title underscores the fact that the target audience for this thing probably wouldn't be able to move their feet very fast without doubling into a wheezing cough.
Space Zone's closest analog in modern dance music may be Zomby's epochal Where Were U in '92?, trading that album's 'ardcore fixation with a focus on hard-hitting juke. Both records showcase a freewheeling ADD-addled sense of speed, with idiosyncratic sounds peppered throughout to keep it fresh. So it's ironic that Davis' most intriguing work comes when he slows things down, from the placid synths and drippy rhythmic squelch of "Space Breeze" to the dreamy synth drift of "Liquid Drug". Here Boards of Canada is the obvious comparison, not so much in actual form but in how he creates cloudy billows of atmosphere that retain a basic level of engagement.
Davis is young and Space Zone sounds like the work of a young artist. A promising young artist, but someone still figuring out his own sound. I've spoken with others about how this record compares to another Planet Mu release from this year from within Chicago's juke scene-- veteran Traxman's hallucinatory, melody-minded Da Mind of Traxman. But ultimately these releases have different aims. While Traxman's expression of songcraft matches and, at times, exceeds the speedy pop burps of DJ Roc's excellent 2010 release The Crack Capone, Young Smoke's not trying to push things forward. Instead, he's trying to take the genre somewhere it hasn't really gone yet, by introducing new textures, giving his productions more space and room to breathe, and infusing the results with a dose of humor. Whether or not he gets there remains to be seen, but joining him on the ride provides its own level of fascination.
