You've probably heard Lyn Collins before. A James Brown collaborator, the 1970s soul and funk singer's output has proven a small but deep well for samplers. "It takes two to make a thing go right"-- that's Lyn Collins. Her songs featured breaks that found their way into hip-hop and drum & bass. She's been covered by the Human League and sampled by Bruce Springsteen. "We Want to Parrty, Parrty, Parrty" was sampled on Charli Baltimore's "Stand Up". Chicago juke icon Traxman samples "Parrty" too, on Teklife Vol. 3: The Architek, a double album for DJ Rashad's Lit City Trax label and Teklife. He turns its harmless imperative, "Hey you! Blow your whistle!," into a barked command; by the end of the track, I'm tired of being yelled at.
Traxman's record collection is purportedly renowned amongst Chicago locals; he's been DJing house and juke and hip-hop for more than three decades. Obscurity, though, is not his game. Last year's Da Mind of Traxman featured AC/DC's "Let There Be Rock" amongst its absurd and hamfisted appropriations. The Architek makes hay with Juicy J ("Off Them Bars", exactly what you would expect) and, hilariously, Michael Jackson's "Earth Song", flipping the song's one ominous line-- "What about killing fields?"-- into nearly four minutes of eerie, melodic paranoia.
It's not the sample, it's how you use it. But Traxman albums are not for trainspotters: the train is 30 yards away, barreling down the tracks at you (blowing its whistle). Where DJ Rashad and RP Boo are menacing and soulful, and DJ Diamond is concerned with breaking rhythmic barriers, Traxman's guilelessness adds warmth and jes to his records. He's the footwork artist most willing to abandon the genre's hyper-rhythmic backbone to explore cheese and glitz. Elements of acid house, juke, and drum & bass meet schlock-pop, glam, and rap.
His tracks tend to conform to one of two templates: heavily deployed vocal samples over sparse drums and more intense, wordless rhythm attacks. Some of his most thrilling moments fall into the latter category. "Japan" utilizes a sparse beat and aquatic bass to underpin a wild, staccato squeak. "Manic" features a long, undulating synthesizer jam. Like last year's "1988", "Mobile Acid" reveals acid house roots, taking an already warped bassline and turning it over on itself until it's a mound of refried goo. "Electric Funk"'s deranged beeps sound like Shangaan electro retrofitted to Chicago juke.
It's those vocal samples that serve as signposts on The Architek, though, like the James Brown-sampling, DJ Rashad-collaboration "Bussin" or the self-mythologizing DJ shoutout "We Takin' Over". "Hold It", a longtime footwork favorite, samples a large swath of Psycho's title theme and adds a short, shrill vocal sample-- "Hold it!"-- over the top. The combination doesn't make a lot of sense, musically or thematically, but it succeeds at feeling both familiar and alien.
The middle of "Blow Your Whistle" features another short Collins sample. Traxman nabs her count-in to the track-- "1! 2! 3! 4!"-- and slices into a wild, disorienting breakdown. It's as fine a summation of Traxman's sound-- blurring the line between voice and rhythm-- as you're likely to find. At 21 tracks, The Architek is overlong and not always engrossing, but its range and confidence are impressive, further cementing Traxman as footwork's mischievous, elusive virtuoso.
