Over the last few years, Bay Area producer Tomu DJ has steadily built a reputation with her genre-bending, off-kilter electronic tracks. Musically indebted to juke and footwork progenitors, on Crazy Trip, Tomu DJ takes the genres to unexpected places, drawing parallels from their house roots to hazy, New Age associations.
If FEMINISTA and Half Moon Bay explored her healing journey through highly textured, eclectic tracks on the downtempo side, Crazy Trip her most clearly club-oriented release to date. Juke and footwork are direct house descendants, a lineage Tomu DJ adheres to as she navigates the house musical genome from the ‘90s to the present day with elevated harmonic sensitivity and just the right amount of humor.
The producer continues with the playful internet culture-adjacent in-song jokes that made her early tracks stand out, with titles like “Mewsic,” a laidback 4×4 thumper with a quirked-up melody. Her use of expansive kick drums adds a weighty comfort to the tune, creating a cocooning feel. “Bedroom DJ” is perhaps the best example, Brooklyn rapper Petty Getty adding an extra layer of unapologetic humor with lyrics like “Pop it twist it/ Flick my smash/ I like money/ Prefer cash” or the repeating chorus “I’m the bedroom DJ/ The real-life bedroom DJ/ You press rewind I replay.” Petty Getty’s chant-like rhymes, coupled with the crunchy acid snare drum make it more classically juke. “Band Man” is a psychedelic drum journey through sinewy, spaced-out synths and subdued drum & bass phrases, cycling towards a glitchy speedcore vocal sample. Moody “Crazy Trip” takes the early Tomu DJ approach of merging ethereal piano pads with restless synths, growing into a dembow beat sprinkled with drum & bass flourishes. The instrumental version of “Bedroom DJ” emphasizes the track’s deep house roots, having the same melodic melancholy that permeates classic-era Nu Groove 12-inches or DJ Sprinkles’s tracks.
Crazy Trip is beautifully filled with stylistic shifts like acid highlights, discreet glitchy disruptions, drum & bass sneak peeks, and polyphonic peak-a-boos. This is late-night/early-morning music with a uniquely intimate touch that feels equally at home on a smoky dancefloor or a night ride through empty streets.
