I’d honestly go to war over “War Room”

Footwork is a genre that I have discussed before, but I honestly think I don’t talk about it enough in writing. It’s honestly my favorite electronic music genre, with its skittering hi-hats and earworm-worthy samples. One artist in the genre who I would consider to be a huge influence on modern takes of the genre, though, is Cakedog.

Cakedog is an alias of Leland Jackson, who also makes electronic music under the name Ahnnu. Jackson’s brand of footwork tends to rely heavily on repetition of samples and odd sounding, intricate beats, which you can hear fingerprints of insubsequent footwork artists like Marsh Crane and Khadija Al Hanafi.

Out of everything I've heard from Cakedog, nothing in his discography screams crazy beats and earwormy samples more than his compilation “War Room.” The compilation is made up of several different EPs of work connected to footwork’s dance culture. It also happens to have some of the most minimal but hardest-hitting footwork tracks I've ever listened to.

“Hurtin” is an early highlight of the compilation and emblematic of a classic footwork track made by Cakedog. The whole song is built around a sample of someone saying “I’m hurtin’” repeatedly and adds multiple different drum fills and additions to the melody. This is singlehandedly the most earwormy song I’ve ever listened to, which is a good thing if you enjoy skittering and fast-paced hi-hats in one second and grooving claps in the next. The beat has this overall simplicity to it, too, through sometimes only having one or two drum elements playing at a time. This makes the song not only impressive anyways because of how much you can remember and groove based off of so few elements, but it also warrants repeated listens by purely trying to figure out when some elements drop out and back in again throughout the song.

A bunch of songs on the compilation feel similar to “Hurtin” in the vein of being so simple yet so intricately made and earwormy but stray in energy and sample. The song “Haha,” for example takes some older samples of someone laughing and saying “Put ‘er there” while having zero other inclusions within, besides the drums. The sample ends up being the inclusion itself, aiding the drums as well as being the centerpiece of the song. The drums on this song are more consistent than “Hurtin” as well, usually keeping the same form at least while removing and adding beat elements.

“Dropped” goes a different direction. While the song does indeed have an earwormy sample, it’s in the form of a moody guitar this time, the rest of the song has multiple synth beeps and bloops populating throughout, making it known that the beat is almost otherworldly. Around the middle of the song, there were multiple samples of people, which I like to think is the song trying to directly communicate with us.

The rest of the album is similar, with simplicity on the surface but being intricate once you sink your teeth into the song.

If you’re a fan of dance music or footwork, I recommend this whole album wholeheartedly. It’s fun, skittering, intricate and the kind of earworm you want to live in your brain forever. If you like this compilation, listen to the Cakedog album “Menace in the Phantom,” which is decidedly more layered and lush.