Perhaps you were there in 1991 when someone spun
We Are i.e. for the first time. Maybe you were a suburban rebel in the mid 1990s, listening to
British pirate radio and
taping the broadcasts. Or you kept it legit and heard
Fabio and
Grooverider on
Kiss FM or
BBC Radio 1. Perhaps you only caught wind of it when
Goldie was on BBC's Maestro (
prev). You might spend your time figuring out
which breaks were
used, from the well-known
Amen, Brother sample (
prev), to
Both Eyes Open by
Lucille Brown & Billy Clark. Or maybe you don't know the difference between
clownstep and
liquid funk, but it sounds like something you want to know more about. Step inside, junglist, and embrace the bass.
There are
many versions of
the history of
Jungle or
Drum and Bass. Most histories note the shift of hardcore techno / rave styles into higher BPMs and the addition of reggae and dub influences,
often citing Innerzone Orchestra's
Bug In The Bassbin (
1992),
Baz De Conga (
1990), and the experiments of
Plaid (
1991) and
Meat Beat Manifesto (
1990) as precursors to what would become
drum and bass.
Others note the asynchronous beats on
Frankie Bones BonesBreaks records (from the
first volume:
Bass Rock Beats, and
Vol. 2:
Jamming Breakdown 2) as playing a significant role in the shift of styles. Whatever the origin, the general sound of jungle and drum'n'bass can be characterized by fast breakbeats (often
sampled from a variety of sources and filtered in a variety of ways) and
heavy bass lines.
Jungle picked up steam quickly, moving from being non-existent in 1990, transitioning from techno and breakbeat hardcore to "
jungle techno" with a first few tracks in 1991, then coming on strong on
pirate airwaves and
rave circuits in 1992. Things turned legit in 1994, with
jungle getting featured on Radio 1, and
the press, record industry and legal radio stations like Kiss FM had finally woken up to Jungle. The focus of the day was around ragga jungle, which featured more of a reggae groove and prominent MCs, putting a voice and a face to the otherwise mysterious DJs behind their decks and even more hidden producers. The peak of ragga jungle was brief, mirroring
the rise and fall of "General" Barrington Levy, who was the voice of
M-Beat's "
Incredible." In a prominent magazine interview,
Levy said such things as: "I run jungle at the moment" and "I came along and bigged up jungle. I took it national", examples of typical MC bombast. But those words were felt to be more than posturing from others in the jungle community.
A self-appointed "jungle committee" (
believed to include Grooverider, Goldie, Jumping Jack Frost and DJ Ron) formed to keep the music from getting too commercial, and amongst other things decided that "Incredible" shouldn't be played by anyone claiming to represent jungle.
DJ Rap, one of the few female jungle DJs, played it anyway and was blacklisted from events. But regardless of committees, times changed, and so did the sounds. Rap's 1994 track
Spiritual Aura was
something of a precursor to one side of the sound of jungle: "intelligent drum'n'bass" (though
LT[J] Bukem was headed there in '91 with the
Logical Progression
EP). LTJ Bukem started his
Good Looking Records with the atmospheric
Demon's Theme (backed with the much harder
A Couple Of Beats), and continued towards more atmospheric DnB with
Peshay,
PFM,
Blame, and
Blu Mar Ten, to name a few.
On the other side of the drum'n'bass divide were the harder sounds, like
hard step found on DJ Hype's label
True Playaz, which opened shop in 1996 with Hype's single
Peace Love & Unity /
And Remember Folks.
Jump-Up is another off-shoot, which is still hard, but with more hip-hop and funk influences, like those found on
Urban Takeover the label of Aphrodite and Micky Finn. That label also started in 1996, with Aphrodite and Micky Finn collaborating on
Bad Ass /
Drop Top Caddy.
An even more intense branch of Jungle was also started around this time.
Breakcore, which would go on to get it's own sub-genres, may have started with
Alec Empire and his
Digital Hardcore Recordings (DHR) label. The sound fused intense drum patterns with more abrasive sounds,
as heard here on a track from his album
The Destroyer, released in 1996. One of the genre's sub-genres is
Raggacore, which brought back the reggae influences. But I digress, back to the jungle.
In 1995,
Jungle's first full-fledged celebrity hit it big.
Goldie sold 150,000 copies of
2-disc album Timeless in the UK alone. The album was released not on his own
Metalheadz label, which he formed the year before with fellow junglists
Kemistry (Kemi Olusanya) and Storm (Jane Conneely), but on the larger dance label
FFRR (Full Frequency Range Recordings).
It was around 1996 that Jungle became Drum'n'Bass, at least
according to Fabio, who had been involved as a DJ in London (Brixton, more precisely) starting back in 1984. Where Jungle was a media star in 1994, rising over hardcore with it's "cartoonish" elements, '96 saw Jungle become something sinister in media coverage. The ragga elements disappeared by-and-large, and the style was widely labeled Drum'n'Bass.
1997 saw
Roni Size expand his sound with the help of a crew of musicians, going as
Roni Size / Reprazent. Their sound was a blending many styles, as heard on
Brown Paper Bag (
YT/Vevo /
DailyMotion), the first single from their double-disc set
New Forms. The album won
the Mercury Prize for 1997, and the group
took their show live in 1998. Regardless of these strides, 1998 was the year Drum'n'Bass died (down). Some mark it as
the curse of the Mercury Prize, while others see
the rise of Garage as replacing the interest in jungle/drum'n'bass.
This death was an incomplete one, as 1998 also saw the birth of
Techstep, a dark and cold sound made by the near-exclusive use of synthesized or sampled sound sources, exemplified by
Bad Company's track
The Nines (
1998). Techstep is something of a scion from
Neurofunk, a term coined by English music critic
Simon Reynolds, which is considered to have started with
Optical - To Shape The Future (
1997).
No U-Turn, the UK label owned and run by Nico (Nicholas Kristian Sykes), is amongst the current adherents to the styles of Neurofunk and Techstep.
1999 was the lull before a broader re-birth, but it did not pass wholly without remark.
Hospital Records founders Tony Colman and Chris Goss release the first album for their label, and their first album as the duo
London Elektricity, entitled
Pull the Plug.
The sound was
equated with the Roni Size / Reprazent "New Forms" LP, but there's more jazz to the whole thing. The sound is a lot broader than "liquid d'n'b," and the label reflects that, being
only open to new sounds and styles.
Drum'n'Bass came back with a swing, as heard on Shimon & Andy C's
Body Rock (
2001). The tune was released on
RAM Records, one of the labels that had been around since the beginnings of Jungle, as seen with the label's 4th release,
Valley of the Shadows by
Origin Unknown. The new sound of
Clownstep, a
circus-style mock-swing beat with the goofy bassline and silly hoovers.
Twisted Individual's
Bandwagon Blues (
2003) was his call-out to the biters copying his style. This, in turn, saw the release of
John B's
Rinse It Out Propa (FKA Blandwagon Poos) (
2004), knocking on Twisted Individual.
Some drum'n'bass communities generally spoke ill of anything that could be called Clownstep, while
other groups embraced the options for
a new, happy sound.
As the 2000s progressed, the sounds of Drum'n'Bass diversified, with
some labels re-issuing early 1990s material alongside
new remixes, while
other labels brought back jungle and ragga-
influenced styles. Drum'n'Bass went live in a big way, with
Hospital Records and London Elektricity making use of
live musicians,
Pendulum toured their soundwith live vocals, guitars and bass,
looking more like a rock concert than a club set.
KJ Sawka made a name for himself as a
live jungle and drum'n'bass drummer, and
other live groups have
formed, changing the sound of recorded and live drum'n'bass.
A further diversification of d'n'b has come from it's own artists venturing into similar genres. The UK group
Aquasky have shifted over time, from drum'n'bass on Moving Shadow, Reinforced & Good Looking, then created their own d'n'b, breaks and hip-hop label,
Passenger, with sub-labels
Sonix and
Incident for drum'n'bass tunes, plus
777 Records was created to lighten the load on the primary Passenger label. DJ Zinc, best known for
Super Sharp Shooter (
1996) and his
Fugees bootleg remix (
1996),
got started on the garage tip in 1999 / 2000 after
the last track on his
Beats by Design EP got radioplay from garage DJs.
Then there is the
electro/
trance'n'bass (
YT) producer/DJ,
John B, with his labels
Beta Recordings for anything he fancies,
Nu Electro Recordings for the electro'n'bass,
Tangent Recordings for the more
fluid sounds, and
Chihuahua Recordings for the latin side of D'n'B. But if (broadly) South American-influenced drum'n'bass is your cup of tea, seek out
Sambass.
DJ Marky and
Drumagick are some of the big names in Brazilian drum'n'bass-style production, as heard on Drumagick's
Easy Boom (
2002) and the track by
DJ Marky & XRS -
LK (
2002), both which incorporate elements of
Take It Easy My Brother Charles by
Jorge Ben Jor.
If you still want more, here are some documentaries:
*
A London Somet'ing Dis (1993/4, 25min 28sec,
MySpace vid or 3-part YT:
1,
2,
3, which is a tad longer)
*
Talkin' Headz - The Metalheadz Documentary (1998, 4-part YT:
1,
2,
3,
4)
*
Welcome to the Jungle -
Rude FM (min sec, 2 part YouTube); a short documentary on
Rude FM 88.2, and the uploader
Gold Seal Stable has more Rude FM clips, as well as a lot of Goldseal Records material (
Discogs /
Roll Da Beats)
*
Modern Times, a LTJ Bukem documentary in 2 parts on YT
*
London Pirates video collection - low quality vids, but some pieces aren't found elsewhere
And if it's mixsets you're looking for, there are plenty:
*
The Jungle Preserve Vault - mixes hosted on MediaFire
*
Dubshack on Golden Era Jungle, hosting mixes from the beginning to more modern stuff
*
Ragga Jungle forums, but you'll have to register and say hello first
*
Drum & Bass mix search engine - does what it says on the tin
posted by somergames at 7:32 AM on February 9, 2010 [5 favorites]