https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qm1F3Z_YnI
― the late great, Saturday, 7 April 2012 21:31 (twelve years ago) link
at the beginning its like the speakers are firing missiles at you
― the late great, Saturday, 7 April 2012 21:33 (twelve years ago) link
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"?
― the late great, Saturday, 7 April 2012 21:40 (twelve years ago) link
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
― the late great, Saturday, 7 April 2012 21:45 (twelve years ago) link
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
― the late great, Saturday, 7 April 2012 21:47 (twelve years ago) link
actually maybe that's why some people hate jungle, it's too much like IDM
― the late great, Saturday, 7 April 2012 21:50 (twelve years ago) link
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
― the late great, Saturday, 7 April 2012 22:00 (twelve years ago) link
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
― the late great, Saturday, 7 April 2012 22:04 (twelve years ago) link
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
― the late great, Saturday, 7 April 2012 22:32 (twelve years ago) link
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
― the late great, Saturday, 7 April 2012 22:38 (twelve years ago) link
euphoria + techstep = cyberdelic?
unfortunately she kind of only had a talent for the breakdowns
― the late great, Saturday, 7 April 2012 22:40 (twelve years ago) link
she does do a good trick at the end of some bars though where the drums mimic little tiny scratches and rewinds
― the late great, Saturday, 7 April 2012 22:45 (twelve years ago) link
Belated uuuuhhhh at What is Love. Restraint, nonrestraint.
― Jedmond, Saturday, 7 April 2012 22:45 (twelve years ago) link
one more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzzec3gl98&feature=relmfu
― the late great, Saturday, 7 April 2012 22:59 (twelve years ago) link
^^ very psychedelic about 3 mins in
― the late great, Saturday, 7 April 2012 23:01 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― lex pretend, Monday, 9 April 2012 17:52 (twelve years ago) link
haha it's okay lex i'm resigned to this now. Thanks for trying again!
― Tim F, Monday, 9 April 2012 21:17 (twelve years ago) link
He's just being willful.
― MikoMcha, Monday, 9 April 2012 21:27 (twelve years ago) link
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).
― Mr Andy M, Monday, 9 April 2012 22:09 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― Tim F, Monday, 9 April 2012 22:43 (twelve years ago) link
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).
― Tim F, Monday, 9 April 2012 22:45 (twelve years ago) link
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 23:04 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― lex pretend, Monday, 9 April 2012 23:06 (twelve years ago) link
i don't even know what this means. i'm pretending not to like jungle?
― lex pretend, Monday, 9 April 2012 23:12 (twelve years ago) link
hmm it sounds a little bit like bragging that you only read books for the verbs
― the late great, Monday, 9 April 2012 23:19 (twelve years ago) link
"i only care about plot and characters - you could write "to the lighthouse" in 19th century vernacular and i'd be happy"
― 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.
― Tim F, Monday, 9 April 2012 23:26 (twelve years ago) link
i remember not really liking the "gorecki" original back in the day!
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.
― lex pretend, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 06:18 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― lex pretend, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 06:19 (twelve years ago) link
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...
― MikoMcha, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 07:49 (twelve years ago) link
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
― lex pretend, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 08:21 (twelve years ago) link
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
― the late great, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 08:31 (twelve years ago) link
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
― r|t|c, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 12:20 (twelve years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIMQjLuG0OY
lex will you concur with me that this magnificent tune is a triumph greater than any other posted heretofore?
― r|t|c, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 12:23 (twelve years ago) link
HAHA i actually heard that nookie mix of 'the dreamer' vahid posted this very weekend flicking thru the car radio dial!! but er i spent the entirety of the rhythm bit racking my brains where i knew the sample from
― r|t|c, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 12:28 (twelve years ago) link
geir to thread
― I'm going to allow this! (LocalGarda), Tuesday, 10 April 2012 12:44 (twelve years ago) link
Granted I've really just dipped my toes into it here and there, but one thing I've always found somewhat unsatisfying about jungle is how bifurcated it can feel, like, here's the busy drum part here and there are the elements floating on top of it. They relate to each other but don't really coalesce and interact, as if the drums just take up so much space in the track that the rest can't do much other than drift or poke at them a little here and there. It's as if rhythmic complexity has been reduced to drum complexity, which is a pretty simplistic reading of rhythm if you ask me, and I also don't really understand the idea of someone not being into jungle automatically being labeled "not a rhythm guy"--I love the way house and techno can involve all sorts of rhythms rubbing up against each other, rhythms that aren't just in the drums but are grounded by them. (My favorite jungle tracks, ironically, have been ones that do away with non-drum elements nearly entirely.)
― Clarke B., Tuesday, 10 April 2012 12:47 (twelve years ago) link
Not really in keeping with the original spirit of the thread but here is the Global Communication Remix of "Gorecki" - only the finest in hypnotic linear d&b. Nb. not for juxtaposition folks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBMaBYE-Awo
I guess where I struggle with this a bit is that it's asking for funky to have basically stayed subservient to us vocal house mores forever. Which wouldn't have been a bad thing per se but there is a lot of us vocal house and it's not going anywhere. I'm not sure that the same thing but with British divas is enough really by itself to sustain an exciting long term genre.
I always loved that stuff within the context of all the rougher instrumental material (which was always there since the end of 2007 at the latest), but without that sense of dynamic I don't think I could ever have fallen so completely head over heels in love with the style to the point where it became a raison d'etre.
The only analogue I can think of offhand is if speed garage had basically settled into being Tuff Jam permanently.
― Tim F, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 12:47 (twelve years ago) link
They relate to each other but don't really coalesce and interact, as if the drums just take up so much space in the track that the rest can't do much other than drift or poke at them a little here and there. It's as if rhythmic complexity has been reduced to drum complexity, which is a pretty simplistic reading of rhythm if you ask me
By the way Clarke FYI this is very very very very very wrong.
― Tim F, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 12:48 (twelve years ago) link
i am maybe one more for "juxtaposition" personally, whatever it is i mean by that
this is an amazing sentence
(i will give that a listen later, i can listen to stuff in this office but i'm not quite sure which thing the headphones go in) (i haven't listened to everything on this thread though, i got dispirited quite early on, also bored)
― liberté, égalité, beyoncé (lex pretend), Tuesday, 10 April 2012 12:49 (twelve years ago) link
xpost:
The best jungle really operates according to an entirely different logic to that I think (responding to yr post lex): this sounds naff or cliched but the beats become the storyteller, and the melodic and textural motifs become the supporting framework like the beat would be in a pop tune; it's like an inversion of the normal structure of popular rhythmic music.
― Tim F, Wednesday, October 26, 2011 10:55 AM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Tim F, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 12:50 (twelve years ago) link
the beats become the storyteller, and the melodic and textural motifs become the supporting framework
sorry Tim but I now can't help hearing this as Nate Dogg singing "the rhythm is the bass and the bass is the treble"
― coal, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 12:55 (twelve years ago) link
except the rhythm being the bass and the bass being the treble is a far more attractive proposition both conceptually and as it actually sounded
― liberté, égalité, beyoncé (lex pretend), Tuesday, 10 April 2012 12:56 (twelve years ago) link
Tim, I did love that Radical Sound track you posted and said was the best jungle tune ever. I love the way you can focus / move to seemingly any beat division: half-note, quarter-note, eighth, sixteenth--there's an internal logic to the beats as they progress that is beyond my current pre-caffeinated ability to articulate.
x-post: Regarding your quote above about melodic and textural motifs becoming the supporting framework, I see that. I don't care much about melody in my dance music, but texture is a huge thing for me--individual sounds--and I feel like much of the jungle I've heard is a little feeble in the sonics department.
― Clarke B., Tuesday, 10 April 2012 12:56 (twelve years ago) link
i guess what i struggle with is, if the beats become the storyteller, why do jungle beats sound so thin and dissatisfying? i can think of many amazing drum sounds that i love but none of them are in jungle.
― liberté, égalité, beyoncé (lex pretend), Tuesday, 10 April 2012 12:57 (twelve years ago) link
Tim's talking about the rhythms themselves and not the drum sounds, I think. But I know what you mean, and I'm kind of the same way; if I don't dig the particular sound of the drums, I can't get into the track no matter how rhythmically dazzling or engaging it might be.
― Clarke B., Tuesday, 10 April 2012 12:59 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, i dislike both though - the rhythms are just too messy for me and the drum sounds are not very thrilling. i don't find the rhythms dazzling at all, they just seem entirely and randomly pointless. they don't go anywhere or resolve, i can't use them for anything...
― liberté, égalité, beyoncé (lex pretend), Tuesday, 10 April 2012 13:01 (twelve years ago) link
i think this whole thing is just about exposure, jungle beats are pretty radical, personally despite repeated efforts i can't get into them either, but i've never danced to jungle which definitely doesn't help. to me it seems like something that wasn't really present for me at any point.
for that reason i think it's a lot harder to just get into after the fact than say old house/techno which people just come to cos it's played alongside all the current stuff.
usually i think with a bit of effort you can get over this kind of thing but i've tried so many times, including on this thread.
(but i did genuinely enjoy some of the tunes in this btw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcfLzuBQADs&feature=youtu.be)
― I'm going to allow this! (LocalGarda), Tuesday, 10 April 2012 13:05 (twelve years ago) link
Tim, the more I think about this, the more I wonder: how is this any different from, say, a really rugged Sandwell District track that's basically just one note (if that), thick, dark bass, and ping-ponging "drum"/rhythmic elements echoing off into infinity? Heck, maybe it's not that different (it sounds like a description of a Dillinja track), and I just like the way techno moves better than jungle.
― Clarke B., Tuesday, 10 April 2012 13:05 (twelve years ago) link