Pacific Northwest bass producer Simon Ho (a.k.a. Cedaa) is another young music maker taking a page or two out of the footwork/juke playbook for his own tunes, although Ho likes to call his sound Bellingham bounce. So leave it to newly minted XLR8R scribe Dave Quam—who wrote this fine article on the Chicago-based genres for our latest print issue—to sign three of Ho’s tracks for the first release of his new imprint, the cleverly titled Free Bass. The opener of Cedaa’s Old Growth EP is “Escalade,” probably the closest relative to footwork featured on the release. All the key attributes are present: incessant vocal samples, woofer-cooking bass, breakneck 808 beats, and halftime claps. Yet Ho still manages to make those trademark sounds his own with the injection of more melody into his low-end, a serious helping of warm synth pads, and a particular sheen uncommon in your average Chicago-born footwork production. You can download the whole Old Growth EP for free via Quam’s It’s After the End of the World blog, here.

Escalade

Escalade