Jungle Rhythms

another face-melter from the (IMO) essential Law of the Jungle compilation: Junior Dan - "Heartless"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuHhzk9brKI

Not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere on ILX, but Raime's mix of old skool jungle for FACT is excellent: http://www.factmag.com/2011/10/17/fact-mix-292-raime/

1. Steve C and Monita – The Razors Edge – Skeleton Records 1994
2. DJ Buz – Slave – No U-Turn 1994
3. 4 Horsemen Of The Apocalypse – We Are The Future (Phantasy & Aphrodite Mix) – Tone Def 1994
4. Blame & Justice – Nightvision (D’Cruze Mix) – Moving Shadow 1994
5. Undercover Agent – Dubplate Circles – Juice 1996
6. Dillinja – Deadly Deep Subs Remix – Deadly Vinyl 1995
7. The Truper – Vol 1 Side B – Street Beats 1994
8. Doc Scott – It’s Yours – Metalheadz 1994
9. DJ Tamsin & The Monk – A Better Place (Baby Kane Remix) – White House Records 1994

if lex of all people doesn't like this one then we should probably give up trying to convert him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq0vPjDY7TA

also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGPgzg7V3Bk

miko yup it was mentioned in www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=35392 which is a nice supplement to this thread

hmm All-time BEST Drum n' Bass/Jungle Mix ??

"Wishing On A Star" is an excellent call

oh yeah. and for pop remixes, this one is a favorite, less for the drums than the bassline at 3:00 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfMtTOEFuwE

I love this one to death, too: Deep Blue - "The Helicopter Tune"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krps2ok4smc

hahaha i'm loving these other aphrodite remixes - i got 5 on it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEr0P7x51k

I don't know if this is too much hardcore/breakbeat precursor than actual jungle/d&b but Lex, you should track down THE JOINT because it's 100% fantastic from start to finish.

dan, you've heard the 2 bad mice remix of helicopter, yes?

Yes! It's great!

I just posted every vid from The Joint that I could find on Youtube (the only one missing is the original "Mystic Stepper") on the ITR music thread btw

lol:

deep blue - "helicopter tune (2 bad mice remix)"

!!! Is this the version that made it onto the Speed Limit comps? If not, I MUST HEAR THIS.

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Thursday, September 29, 2005

i'll see if i can ysi tomorrow dan. it's totally different.

― strng hlkngtn (dubplatestyle), Thursday, September 29, 2005

what did we ever do before youtube?

well, ysi, i guess.

great squiggly pascal track
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WaISj2xWY0

is there a dj hype remix of "on and on"? that shit would rule

a legit jungle remix of "on and on" by anybody would rule, actually.

helicopter tune is a...tune

People can talk about what they like in this thread of course, but I started it to talk about tunes with drums that really sing. Like this amazing early Source Direct tune "Fabric of Space", which really captures that moment in the trajectory from atmospheric jungle into, I dunno, post-techstep I guess, the same trajectory all the best and hardest Goldie tunes ever were on. The snares on this are so tactile and impacting!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVOPJNFRG78

ay ay ay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De8HwaiQnBA

since i've been "rinsing" it lately, chaps. cheerio.

great thread, tim.

early source direct is great. 'snake style', 'bliss' and 'secret liasons' (not so early but still one of my top 5 jungle tunes). but i'm more of a mood nerd (if such thing exists) when it comes to jungle.

beat wise, always loved this dj crystl tune :

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/B6ZX5-TkOxA"; frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

haha tim i was basically trying to coax lex into paying more attention to jungle by spoonful-of-sugar'ing it via tunes with elements i know he loves already.

i'm not doing very well with these selections i'm afraid (three in) (didn't get to the end of any of them), i'd previously thought i just didn't know enough about d&b but i think i just don't like it :/

i don't like the way the beats...sound? i'm not putting it very well but they don't have any OOMPH to them

that "wishing on a star" track is pretty good though!

So being a 'sonix nerd' means rating Nightslugs, but disliking the entire genre of d&b and jungle (bar 'Wishing on a Star)? Seems weird. I feel bad for you :(

how on earth are you meant to dance to jungle? it's like idm to me tbh

You either follow the snares high-road martial arts-style or go for skanking to the slow-down dubby basslines. Usually, a bit of both. Also, drugs.

This would be my contribution, not sure if it sings enough for Tim though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2NNM5UWlQo

With jungle you dance half-speed to the bass (the opposite of how I dance to dubstep, which is double-speed to the bass).

Are you more of a vocals rather than beats man Lex?

How about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XtDgEjZPTE

Guys I think you're on a hiding to nothing here (although it does genuinely surprise me that Lex isn't that interested in rhythm as a focal point of music in its own right).

the dillinja tune was okay, i like the moodiness of it

i like beats, i just need...steady beats when it comes to dance music

That's fair enough I suppose.

this is the only d&b tune i've genuinely loved

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UlCZYoQMBI

no lay's voice isn't just decoration, and the beats work so well with it

and there are so many awesome contrasting synth elements

Haha that's total "empire state of mind" logic right there.

in what way? no one's ever said "empire state of mind" is a good version of any genre (except maybe pop)

Lots of people think "empire state of mind" is a good rap tune because of Alicia Keys.

well that's understandable? she is the only thing about it that miiiight push it into worthwhile territory

I've always thought I could get into jungle, but the more I listen to it, the less convinced I am of that. I still suspect that if I had given it more of a chance back in the 90s, before I started digging into Arabic and Latin music, it might have clicked for me. Kind of weird how it's like a dance music genre made out of jazzy drum solos. I like rhythmic complexity, but not into it.

It's not that I hate it either. I don't mind leaving it on, but it's as if it adds nothing by being on.

So glad that this thread exists. Tim have you heard/do you have the following tape? DJ Rap with Remadee and Det on Kool FM, December 93: http://www.sendspace.com/file/luj4gk
One of my all-time favourite pirate tapes, in any genre. This prob sound weird by whenever I listen to it I always think 'Hey I bet Tim & the ILX Funky dudes would love this sort of thing'.

kinda sad this thread ceased to exist. been working on a jungle article for a local website lately, and your insights (tim) are A+. not to say the other blurbs weren't worth it, obv (it would be great to see this grow) but...he started it.

Thanks rusty.

I think if I ever were to write a book it would be some big unified theory thing about rhythm (qua rhythm) in dance music.

With a readership of about 5.

BTW I hadn't noticed that THE FINEST JUNGLE TUNE EVER* is now on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qljpMmCM3ko

* or top 5 at any rate.

I was going to say "it saddens me that someone like lex couldn't get with this", but that's not quite it... More like: when I think of how much joy the drums on this give me, it makes me think that not being into jungle rhythms in and of themselves would be like not having one of the five senses, the whole world would seem a bit of a lesser experience.

But srsly what this tune does with snares is like one "holy fuck" after another, a ridiculous thunderstorm of beats.

It's actually what I imagined what Black Secret Technology would sound like based on the descriptions before I heard it.

Another totally amazing, rhythmically lifechanging tune from the same comp, rendering drill & bass redundant well before the fact:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjxR1PTUN5c&feature=relmfu

Yay it's back.
Whenever I get comments from people IRL along the lines of 'quite like jungle but I just don't find it very danceable' (which is an understandable attitude to it in some ways, I'm not slagging lex or anyone else for holding it) this is always one of the tunes I start them off with:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MIsA1AiStY

Also bit WOW @ the Radical Sound and Dub Technicians tunes. Any time I think I've heard it all with jungle things like these come along and I realize I've still got so far to go (which is a good thing obv).

I have a piece coming out in a french journal in a few months about funky's approach to rhythm and it's on exactly this point, the way in which funky seemed to slide between the rhythmically familiar and the unfamiliar, managing to be rhythmically comforting and confounding at the same time. This isn't a new trick in dance music but I tend to think funky's golden age took it an extreme (to the extent one can describe such a state of inbetweenness as "extreme").

rhythmically comforting and confounding at the same time.

spot on. one of those central tensions.

i don't think i ever heard funky as rhythmically confounding - insofar as i noticed the rhythms they provided a very comforting sweet spot

Lex it's fair to say that little if any of the funky you seemed to like most could be described as rhythmically confounding, in particular stuff like "In The Air" and "Falling Again" are basically straight vocal house.

I have a piece coming out in a french journal in a few months about funky's approach to rhythm

!!

it'll be in french though.

Rev, did you ever hear Dubplate Wonder's Wonderland 09 set? It's all his own productions and it is basically all about that tension, 100%.

Pretty much cosign what Rev & Tim are saying about funky.

Having another boring day where I'm trying to get myself writing, so thought I'd throw in some more thoughts on the whole is jungle danceable/how do you dance to jungle thing -
I guess there were aspects of it that I initially had problems with as a dance, but for me it wasn’t so much the full-on Amen rinse-out tunes that I had problems with – yeah it could be difficult, at times nearly impossible to follow every single beat on them but I could at least generally spasm about to them in the same way that I used to do with like Bad Brains or F-Minus or whatever. I guess in that respect it’s helpful that the Amen break has an inherent degree of energy and forward-motion in it that will come through no matter what way it’s chopped and reordered.

The kind of tunes I had more trouble with were the very strongly reggae-influenced tunes that mostly came out in 94 at the peak of jungle’s popularity. Trying to think of good examples here – Dem A Gwarn Like Dem Know Badness by Tek 9 would be one, or even Idiot Sound by New Blood. Both great tunes of course, and there were loads of others in that style that I loved and straight away wanted to dance to, i.e. I found the rhythmically compelling but wasn’t quite sure how to move my body to them.

I think part of this came from how the producers folded the breakbeats down into that skanking reggae groove – it would create an effect where the beat would seem to drop out at unexpected places, or else where the overall beat pattern of the tune would feel lop-sided or lurching until you got used to it. I think I’ve pretty much got there with dancing to these tunes – of course, like with almost all dance music I’m never sure that I’m dancing the right way to it. I’ve danced to jungle in clubs but not really for full sets and obv not with og jungle ravers so it’s hard to measure my moves against anything. But I can move to it without really thinking about it now which I think is a big part of it, like I’m not often standing around and hesitating.

As a dancer the first kind of jungle tunes that did hook me were along the lines of the M-Beat one I posted upthread, i.e. ones with a beat pattern that was immediately captivating but also concise and not too difficult to follow. Also more steady-rollin’ kind of tunes like The Burial, Helicopter Tune, Sovereign Melody etc. Those were the ones I found myself intuitively making moves to while listening.

Lol 'as a dancer' sounds so pompous, 'from a dancing pov' is maybe a better way to put it.

i'm with the lex on this thread. man, its hard for me to think of too many genres or sub-genres i never want to hear. but this would be one of them. and i try too. i just played portions of every youtube on this thread.

Hey Andy - I used to post a bit on ILC, but I mainly lurk waiting for that rare beast - a good thread about jungle.

RE: Flex. He's a bit patchy fer sure , but I'll forgive him anything because of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm6qSLB84-0

And this sublime pulsating bass hot pants 4/4 kick combo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jrVR7MOIlg

I have a piece coming out in a french journal in a few months about funky's approach to rhythm

#rare #based

Hey Andy - I used to post a bit on ILC, but I mainly lurk waiting for that rare beast - a good thread about jungle.
Haha I feel you on this - don't post here all that much but when I first saw this thread my eyes totally lit up. Trying to get a bit more involved with things here at the moment though.
Had forgotten about Ya Buzzin Again actually, it's a good 'un yeah.
Have listened to that Steve Gurley FX In Dub Mix tune you posted 10+ times in the last few days btw, so good.

So dark that this wasn't the version of "Watching Windows" used on the album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX9sas7qoLE

wow

DJ Die remix was also great, but this version goes so fantastically with the actual song, makes it maybe the equal of "Share The Fall".

One of my favourite things about the best Roni/Reprazent beats circa New Forms is how that whole investment in sounding like a live drummer translates into this rhythms where it constantly sounds like the beat is just about to fall behind itself, is always working frantically to keep up. Rather than "fluidity", the effect is a very human wired twitchiness.

i don't actually think i ever loved a funky house tune for its rhythm.

my mind is still boggling at this assertion two years later

Haha

loool

this was a good thread

Vaguely related to peak-era Reprazent, I'm interested in that half-missed opportunity circa 1995-1997 for grooves that were on a Davis/Hancock meets Jon Hassell fourth world tip. Hidden Agenda are the obvious example here but I think they actually verge on being too fiddly when in this mode (my favourite HA track remains "Dispatch #2", which is more of a neurofunk affair).

This was inspired by listening to Form & Function again and rediscovering Peshay's remix of "Rings Around Saturn", the way he redeploys those razor-sharp isolated snares within that constantly pirouetting jazz-funk groove. "On The Nile" probably is a good example of this as well though I'd have to listen again to say just how good.

Funny how drum & bass passed by so many interesting potential avenues of exploration so quickly in its accelerating plunge towards rhythmic conformity. I've really only heard the singles from Miles From Home but they suggested that by 1999 Peshay had totally smoothed out his beats. Even "P vs P"!

Don't know if this can exactly be called jungle, but what it can be exactly called is incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se1PuiDSVmA

Well duh

In retrospect Trace and Nico's "Damn Son" sounds rather like a hot uk funky rhythm played too fast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvhZofXqr_A

Remarc - RIP, DJ Hype Remix. Completely mental.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5nIqbq3S-w

Therapy? - Loose (Photek remix)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E8ebG0faFA

^^^ more d 'n b I suppose, but still great

This Klute remix of Lamb's "Little Things" - so awesomely on that Arcon 2 tip of destroying you with science:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mjzgcX9_ZU

that was good - enjoyed that. i don't know why i find so much of jungle/d'n'b boring though. where i live it's almost the law that you have to like jungle but unless it's something outstanding, i tend to find it inert or just a bit uninteresting after a couple of tracks.

i definitely prefer the furious ragga-based stuff from the early nineties to the more jazzy, stop-start stuff from the mid-decade onwards. I find that stuff frustrating.

check the reverb on this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KABz5IfhzUs