The first time I heard Addison Groove’s ‘Footcrab,’ I didn’t really know what I was listening to. I just knew that I liked it.
“People actually say that to me quite often,” the producer tells me over the phone from his studio. “That’s really cool.”
Consisting of a hypnotic kick drum loop, sorrowful chords and a flurry of short vocal stabs (the most prominent one repeatedly blaring the word ‘footcrab’), the track was puzzlingly infectious. It was unlike anything being made – or even played – in the UK at that time.
The year was 2010 and electronic music was at a restless juncture. While dubstep was still a dominant sound in Britain’s clubs, its star was fast waning. Ravers were growing tired of overblown drops and chainsaw synths. (Or to use Williams’ more direct assessment: “dubstep turned to shit.”) The time was ripe for something new.
This is precisely how ‘Footcrab’ – an otherwise improbable anthem – was able to sweep London’s clubs. Williams (then known in the dubstep scene as Headhunter), created a new moniker and, with it, a new sound. Under the name Addison Groove, he became one of the first producers to fuse UK influences with urgent, energetic beats from Chicago, namely footwork, juke and ghetto house.
“A lot of people say to me: ‘If it wasn’t for ‘Footcrab,’ I wouldn’t have discovered footwork,” Williams continues. “But it was a dubstep tune. It was just a dubstep track with footwork sounds.”
In retrospect, it was both and neither simultaneously. Using the record as a bridge between genres, Williams paved the way for a new breed of producers. Having long marched to the beat of its own drum, Britain’s electronic underground was embracing American influences again.
Fittingly, when I speak to Williams, he’s just returned from a tour of the US. And although America has welcomed Addison Groove’s hybrid sound, he still gets asked to play old Headhunter songs (“Denver’s a dubstep city, and the promoter there bluntly said, ‘We just wanna hear the old shit,’” he laughs). But what do people think in Chicago?
“I’ve played in Chicago a couple of times,” he recalls. “I knew a lot of footwork guys were coming out to my parties there, but I wasn’t gonna try and play footwork to them! They’ve got way more of it than I do; they can educate me more than I can educate them. So I came up with some crazy UK shit instead.
“I’m never gonna go to Chicago and play footwork. That would be a stupid thing to do!”
The issue may soon be redundant anyway. Having produced two albums inspired by the sounds of Chicago (2012’s Transistor Rhythm and 2014’s Presents James Grieve), Williams’ approach is evolving. Among his new, more prominent influences, he lists once-obscure genres that are now making headway both sides of the Atlantic: South African gqom, Angolan kuduru and cumbia from South America.
“My new stuff is definitely less of a Chicago sound – I was doing that for so long,” he explains. “It was one of my strongest influences, from the moment I discovered it. But you can’t keep doing the same thing. I’ve got to keep myself interested.
“I really love Afrobeats and I listen to a lot of old African stuff, but I never really brought any of it into my music. I thought, ‘I love this music and I love playing it out, so I might as well see if I can bastardize it in my own way.’ So that’s kind of what my new record is.
“I played a party recently where our music policy was strictly salsa, Afrobeats, cumbia and maybe a little bit of funk – but nothing too new and nothing too hard. I changed my name to DJ Tropical Discos for the night, and it was a really good vibe. I got to play all the music that I listen to in my car.”
Williams is clearly no mindless crowd-pleaser. But he has no intention of alienating fans either. As well as avoiding footwork in Chicago, he’s wise enough to leave some of his more esoteric records – and his DJ Tropical Discos alias – at home as he prepares to tour China.
“I don’t think Dominican merengue from the 1940s will go down too well,” he admits.
He’s probably right. Just don’t ask him to play any chainsaw dubstep.
Shanghai: Mar 31, 10pm-late, RMB60. Dada Bar, see event listing.
Beijing: Apr 1, 10pm-late; Tickets TBD; Dada Beijing, see event listing.
Shenzhen: Apr 8, Price TBD. Club Sector.
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