Jungle Rhythms

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).

*big WOW

that "what is love" mix's directly from Jungle Soundclash Volume 1

Strictly hardcore!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvMZYz5HoCs

this is one of my favorites, i don't think it sounded quite as generic as it sounds now in 1994 BUT what happens at about 3:15 is still amazing to me (and even though the first part is kinda undistinguished i like the hook enough)

if you compare it though to something like remarc though bizzy b's drum edits are way more brutal and they snarl like detuned synth almost, in remarc there's quite a lot of slightly dated isolated percussion hits (sorry metalheadz)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qm1F3Z_YnI

at the beginning its like the speakers are firing missiles at you

does what it says on the tin, but ...

(the melody slips out and back) "under from a bass drum"? "thunder from a bass drum"? "wonder from a bass drum"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t5Cr2tForc

^^ kinda like autechre until the diva shows up ... and then its like autechre again for a split second and then it just turns into seasick drum rolls

fukin tune! wikid upload --

SKYTZOO

for a second you think the diva's coming back in but then its just the sound of brain cells dying

actually maybe that's why some people hate jungle, it's too much like IDM

on one hand i had to log in to flag the most-liked comment on youtube ("dj rape lol")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1YtJFBObQQ

on the other hand

http://goldenerajungle.net/mixes/rap/xdjrapx.jpg

The fanboys getting very hot under the collar

― mmmm

while we're getting anachronistic, i believe i detect some early todd terry infuence sneak in around 2:22, gets especially pronounced about 20 seconds later

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7nbPUNxFKE&feature=related

i love how the toms and stuff are folded into the break, otherwise its not that special except it has the sexiest breakdown ever, somehow turns amens into trance snare rolls and it doesn't suck

and here's the "dj rap get raw remix"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ggzXMp8tsc&feature=related

early techstep w/o the dred bass

euphoria + techstep = cyberdelic?

unfortunately she kind of only had a talent for the breakdowns

she does do a good trick at the end of some bars though where the drums mimic little tiny scratches and rewinds

Belated uuuuhhhh at What is Love. Restraint, nonrestraint.

one more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzzec3gl98&feature=relmfu

^^ very psychedelic about 3 mins in

i tried the radical sounds one and the beats actively bother me, in a bad way. there's no...pulse to it, it's just all over the place and i can't make sense of it in my head. i like the bass though and would probably like a house remix without those beats. sorry :/

this thread has only made me realise that when i've enjoyed bits of jungle in the past it's because i was basically ignoring the beats, when i actually focus on them i can't enjoy any of it.

haha it's okay lex i'm resigned to this now. Thanks for trying again!

He's just being willful.

Been playing this one an awful lot recently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5BuitZ-_A8

Sort of like Music Box's slightly more melancholy cousin.
(Not aiming at conversion here, just felt like posting it).

this thread has only made me realise that when i've enjoyed bits of jungle in the past it's because i was basically ignoring the beats, when i actually focus on them i can't enjoy any of it.

it also explains pretty neatly where our opinions on funky tunes differ radically - it's not just a "rhythm nerd vs sonics nerd" thing, it's that the bits I find the most exciting you are actively tuned off by. "House Girls 6" being an apt example.

In some ways funky expresses a direct line of descent from jungle that bypasses uk garage, in that at its most rhythmically perverse it explores a kind of constructive messiness (but not too messy - that's always the tension) that was very rarely part of garage's make-up (though there are exceptions).

the ne plus ultra of funky for me was always the initial wave of do you mind/in the air/falling again. the vocals and melodies and textures. i don't actually think i ever loved a funky house tune for its rhythm. dump a more straightforward beat behind them and i'd pretty much get the exact same things out of the music.

which is why i find even the best funky instrumentals just...okay, rather than best thing ever. i would rather hear ill blu remixes of the entire top 40 before an ill blu vocal-free ep again.

He's just being willful.

i don't even know what this means. i'm pretending not to like jungle?

hmm it sounds a little bit like bragging that you only read books for the verbs

"i only care about plot and characters - you could write "to the lighthouse" in 19th century vernacular and i'd be happy"

the ne plus ultra of funky for me was always the initial wave of do you mind/in the air/falling again. the vocals and melodies and textures. i don't actually think i ever loved a funky house tune for its rhythm. dump a more straightforward beat behind them and i'd pretty much get the exact same things out of the music.

― lex pretend, Monday, 9 April 2012 11:04 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, see, I love all three of those tunes but "In The Air" and "Falling Again" are (already) rhythmically so straightforward that they could never sum up what I love about funky - or not what I love about funky specifically at any rate.

It's a similar issue with a lot of rhythmically straightforward jungle tunes - as much as I adore Alex Reece's "Pulp Fiction", Lamb's "Gorecki (Global Communications Remix)", Doc Scott's "Shadowboxing", Boymerang's "Still", Dom & Roland's "Can't Punish Me" and Lexis' "Destination Unknown", they're too linear to be the tunes that spring to mind when I think of what I love about jungle.

Though that Gorecki remix is probably a tune that you would get with Lex.

i remember not really liking the "gorecki" original back in the day!

"i only care about plot and characters - you could write "to the lighthouse" in 19th century vernacular and i'd be happy"

there was a minor discussion on one of the music compression threads about what people get out of films, actually - for me plot and character are absolutely paramount. obv i care about cinematography but it's rarely the thing i go to get excited about. people who get excited about set design baffle me.

not gonna lie, while i've loved a lot of funky since that initial wave, the failure of the genre to recapture what i loved about it has def been a source of annoyance.

i'm not sure how i can so easily appreciate, say, "stupid hoe" as a beat qua beat though when rhythmic complexity in jungle and funky is a distraction at best.

i don't even know what this means. i'm pretending not to like jungle?

Just find it hard to believe at a certain point that you could listen to so much UK dance music (hardcore continuum, etc.), and not be into jungle. I guess it's entirely possible, but that whole lineage seems to be entirely about rhythm...

But it's about which bits of UK dance music I've loved and the different types of rhythm. 2-step and grime both tend to use much steadier, pulsier beats - and the singers/songs and MCs are front and centre. As discussed elsewhere the UK dance I like most atm is textural rather than rhythmic in appeal. UK dance music post-jungle pretty effectively removes the biggest obstacle about jungle for me, ie the focus on undanceable rhythms that just code as "wacky" and purposeless to me

i'm just saying that i don't think rhythm and melody and harmony and lyrics etc etc are as separable as this conversation is making them out to be, not any point about what you pay attention to or whether you should like jungle or not

guess i should come clean and say i sympathise with lex for the most part - obv not to the rhetorical lengths he's gone to but nevertheless the mystical boners jungle rhythms seem to provide many have always eluded me somewhat

in particular i recall studying the metalheadz oeuvre at length round the time of whenever yall polled it and feeling very "if u say so"

idk, not to dip a toe too far into the shallow waters of self-mythology but my first feeling is i am maybe one more for "juxtaposition" personally, whatever it is i mean by that