My fave Facebook group has to be the New Hardcore / Darkside / Jungle group full of likeminded individuals whom are helpful, generous and in this day and age where there are arseholes in every facet of the internet – respectful and kind. I’m in a couple of other similar Facebook groups that are also brilliant but the ones I have left: I’m still trying to find a meaner word than ‘pretentious dicksplats’.
Right, rant over, time for someone fairly new that I found on the above group – DJ Midnite. You want 92-93 stompy amens with proper oldskool melodies? Look no further, all lovingly made on mostly analogue gear. As someone else has said, DJ Midnite has got this era absolutely on point. I’d also urge you to buy his back catalogue on Bandcamp – an amazing bargain at just over a tenner.
I also found myself doing the slow jog/dance on the spot like I used to do at events in 1993 when mixing this lot, testament to these style of tunes. You like film samples in Jungle Hardcore tunes too? And Goddamn, that last tune – here ya go…
Do I regret selling my vinyl? Yes & No. Storage would be a problem, as well as being a neek to go with it (I had to Google “neek” after I got trolled online playing F1 2021). I’d be paranoid too of scratching the sacred surfaces, or – the cardinal of sins which has happened to me before – someone yoinking them. As well as buying and maintaining a pair of decent turntables with an expensive mixer to justify them, the idea of it all being physical is a little off-putting and yeah, I am glad I’m all digital and that.
But by God I bloody miss ’em. I even miss the minuscule whiff of mustiness as you go through the record box. Here’s a sobering thought: I’ve been DJing digitally longer than I have with wax and wheels of steel, but you’ll never replicate releasing the vinyl at the start of the track after cueing it up. It’s took me about a year on and off to sift through all my tracks and slap the ones I owned on vinyl into a virtual folder and I reckon I’m about 90% complete. I then filtered the year, then filtered those 1994 badboys into genre: I bought over 2 records a week that year and 66 had a dark flavour about them. Here’s 26 of the buggers, some anfums, others not so. I thought they’d be monotonous to mix as I used to watch them spinning round endlessly as remember back then you could only mix what you literally had in front of you. To be fair, you got to know your tunes in the 1990s and I’m still of the opinion that DJs were better back then as they were limited by hardware and software. Anyway, here’s the mix; the neeks out there may argue the opener isn’t dark. Well I think it is. Like happy dark. Or dark happy. Whatever.
I have downloaded nearly 500 files of Jungle/DnB in a folder since the start of October this year, ridiculous. Most of it contains the newer jungle releases, a sound I wouldn’t say I’m exactly pushing as it’s my site and I plop on it whatever I fancy at the time but since discovering Wicked Jungle Records about this time last year I do tend to lean toward the newer stuff; there’s so much of it out there it’s overwhelming. Considering this blog was meant to originally showcase the yesteryear heyday (which I will still do), it’s nice to see this blog – and, yeah, me – evolving. Anyway, here’s a condensed version of said folder, reluctantly shaved down to still a whopping 47 tracks at nearly 2 and a quarter hours long. You’ll find stuff from 1993-5 too as the copies I had were bleeding awful so I’ve obtained cleaner versions. Stand out tracks for me this year have been DJ KOS’s Just Easy where I required smelling salts after the second acapella and 4am Kru’s remix of King, a tune I think I cried at after one too many ciders from OneStop. Oh look – there’s that artist Jon Tetly popping up again: big shout out to you mate for the exclusives! Much, much more from that producer in the new year.
Hope you all had a good Christian festive holiday and that. Roll on 2022 for more, erm, rolling tracks.
I’m happy as a pig in shite – just like 30 years ago – if I’m walking anywhere and I’ve got my tunes on the go. The technology’s changed but the principle’s the same: ignoring people, traffic, dogshit on the pavement and being generally antisocial like all people now spastically glued to their smartphones, just so you can zone out on those fast beats man. This happened to me today as I handed over my excuse of a car to my mechanic for repair and decided to walk the 4 miles home. iTunes on shuffle, B-Key filled my earpods and I really enjoyed that darker, serious side of DnB with crashing amens, dark, thoughtful pads and sub bass that makes your eyes nearly bleed. You’ll also be glad to hear that I didn’t step in any canine faeces, get run over, or interact with anyone so all in all, a good day.
Most of these tracks are in my “new tunes” folder, though some of them are over two decades old, like Tech Itch’s remix of Megaladon, a tune I had on vinyl that was a 19 year-old ID for me. I started looking for the track in about 2008 when I wanted to build my long-gone vinyl collection in ill-gotten mpfrees from pure memory alone. All I remember was that the vinyl inner was blue and it had a Japanese-sounding artist, hardly any intro and a mad pacy amen… I managed to filter drum & bass into vinyl by year on ‘Cogs and squinted through that year’s releases by image alone, it took me hours (I was at work, mind), all to no avail. A dozen years later I found it by accident… turns out I’d filtered my searches to the wrong funkin’ year (2000 is the correct year). Ironically, my Bruh Andi/Presha Lock knew and remembered the vinyl anyway and I could have saved myself years of torment just by simply asking him. I’m also annoyed because I thought I was quite nerdy when it comes to Mark Caro releases; it was one of them tunes you actually think and dream about soooo much that you convince yourself it actually doesn’t exist (like I thought with Grooverider’s remix of Piper).
YES it does exist! I try to imitate the computerised voice in the shower, much to my missus’ chagrin.
Anyway, it’s a difficult record to slip into a certain kind of set, so thought I’d drop it here. There’s also my winter 2021’s car-stereo-on-loop song, Black Spell. No amen here (as are a handful of tunes in this set), but I think if we lived in a parallel universe where that particular influential breakbeat didn’t exist, this would be my go-to track; it’s just so damn Jungley – plus that bass is pure filth.
To finish off, I’ve slapped in Tango‘s 2018 remix of War 4 ’94, that breathy opening synth one of my most favourite haunting intros. It still saddens me this legend is no longer with us, especially after he took the time out to message me in 2010 when I was putting on a free oldskool rave and he offered a discount to DJ back to back with Ratty for less than £250. I never took him up on the deal, something I think about a lot. Musically-wise, I reckon this was one of the last tracks he worked on which led me to sneaking in his remix of Stylin’. You’ll find a few releases from the awesome Danger Chamber label; another label focusing on serious sounds, much more on that label in the new year.
Anyway, let’s not get melancholy – let’s get serious. Like Drumfunky serious.
Not strictly Jungle this week as I have over 300 tracks to trawl through (95% 2021 amen tearers 😀 ) here’s a mix I did many moons ago , again, on my Total Control of tracks released by producers called Allied, a group that got Neurofunk DnB down to perfection. They sadly disbanded last year but man, their stuff was so technical. I did a 20 minute mix of their tracks 8 years ago and being the dude I am, messaged them on Soundcloud to see if they didn’t mind due to copyright and stuff. Firstly, they commented that they loved the blend of my mixes (believe me, even I was shocked too) and told me to message them on Facebook as they respond quicker. So I did an hour’s mix, they went berserk and plonked it on their Facebook page. And promised me a pint. Never happened though. I can’t scroll through 100 months’ worth of the band’s posts to prove it, but it’s all true. If you feel like a little bit of gritty sharp DnB, this one’s for you.
Our evening bedroom entertainment consists of (now I know you’re going to carry on reading) the missus neglecting my massive… TV that I toiled over erecting on the wall opposite the bed and watching Masterchef on her phone instead. Let me assure you that I have not yet been surprised with banana-infused foie gras with a camel-ball sweat jus, I’m happy with turkey dinosaurs and potato smiley faces, me. Where was I? Oh, so this in turn means that I listen to mixes that I stream but not my own – I’d end up grinding my teeth away in my sleep at my clanging. I did fancy something last night though, and it was my 6/7 year old mix of all the Jungle and DnB classics remixed. Considering it was mixed on a Numark Total Control with Virtual DJ running on Windows XP all through a Samsung Notebook that I bought off the back of a Polish wagon for £50 it’s a bloody miracle the software didn’t crash yet went one better and even recorded, it’s one of the best mixes I’ve ever done. I thought there would have been some remixes I missed and others produced since then and I was proved right.
This is more of a jump up affair and not as smooth a blend as the previous mix; I pretty much mixed this on the fly without any planning. There’s another quiz this week of can you guess where the tune nearly ran out? as I was cleaning the bathroom shower screen with a squeegee and everything. Rock n’ Roll at Jungle Forever Towers.
No blog posts lately due to lack of cans. I broke my 20-quid headphones, so bought a pair of SoundLabs for £9.49; the Happy Shopper of audio equipment, I got nine pounds forty nine pence worth. They’re in the bin. Now I have some very expensive Pioneers and man, are they worth it. Psychosomatically, I think I mix better with ‘em… probably not though.
So I’m watching one of my fave films, Menace II Society, realised it’s been sampled many times in many tunes, and decided to sample a line of it myself, check the intro. While I’m fiddling with it, I notice the Stephen King-themed Peanuts pic I’ve got on my machine and think, “I’ve had that about a year… oh yeah! Halloween!” and immediately get my 1993 darkside on. Last year I had a thing for this genre and I got bored with it. It’s nice to leave things alone for a while.
Can you name the films?
There’s tunes here that have been in similar mixes and others that haven’t, and I pretty much enjoyed it and although the original (virtual) crate had over two hundred 1993 dark-patterned tracks in it, I whittled it down quite easily to about 40 yet the set is still nearly two hours long – be warned, if you’re struggling for space on your device, the mp3 size is 157 megabytes if you’re not streaming it y’all. Some of my best-loved tunes are in there (Breakin Up, TalesFrom The Darkside, Drum Programme) and there’s strange, eerie ones too: I still don’t fully understand Chaos & Julia Sets’ NaturalHigh Parts 1 & 2, it absolutely creeps me out. And then there’s the Final Conflict remix, a high energy track that captures that ‘93 dark Jungle Hardcore essence beautifully. Also note that I threw in Q Project’s original Night Moves, for me an innovative, if not slightly quirky, thoughtful bit of tunage that perhaps paved the way for future generations.
Those last 3 digits. Yup, it’s that time of year again.
Without further ado, here’s the mix – without beat synchronisation (sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t) or any 21st century FX and just some plain old bass, mid and treble knob tweakin’. I moved the fan in the bedroom (whaaaaaa? In October man? Long story) and the missus tripped over it in the night. Complaining, she unwittingly named this set: apparently I ruined her “Darkness Path”. That’ll do.
Here’s a mix that might surprise you; it certainly surprised me. For all my lamenting on the TechStep scene which was really strong in this year, there was a fair bit of amen on top of those crunchy snares. Even more surprising, I had a few of these on vinyl myself and I really enjoyed mixing this set. The tunes were so much better in quality during this shift in the scene in ’97, sometimes you have to hold your hands up and say, “shit the bed. I was wrong!”
No rambling on this week as one of my wingmen said that he’s either too bollocksed or lazy to read all through my blog posts. Fair point.
Here’s another American-based label concentrating on supersonic amen breaks – PPJ Recordings. A relatively young label with 7 solid releases under its belt, the focus on amen-choppage is simply mesmerising yet with clever skill the rollidge is, um, rolling. There’s also a slightly bad-boy edge with a touch of ragga that keeps everything on its toes but, for me, this label gets that 1994/5 vibe juuuust right. Personally this is important and I love the sound that’s being produced here.
Also note that Jon Tetly’s Old Style EP isn’t on this particular mix as most of it was in the last blog set… hopefully more to come from the JT soon.
Right, usual apologies to the artists/owners who hear their material being mixed in or out in a clang-estine fashion; my only defence being that I love this style of Jungle and when mixing it think I’m DJ Ratty or summat. Listening back to the set, it is with great sadness that I know I’m not.
Even though this blog is based toward the actual music from back in the day (read blog sub-heading) this is no excuse not to push this kind of new production. I’m absolutely loving it and am like a dog with two dicks on Bandcamp with new releases at the moment. However: I was listening to a 1994 Pilgrim set a couple of days ago and my old skool jungle bizniss juices are flowing again. Standby for a Jungle Forever special soon(ish)…
No blog posts lately due to life, simple as that. To get away from it all, I meander around on my bicycle looking like an insane pudding until my old knees start to sing. Like yesterday: I cycled nearly 50 miles, got lost in Wolverhampton, then got knocked off my bike by a van less than a mile from home. I’m cool though, no harm done.
This made me realise though as my life flashed before my eyes – especially that glorious summer of 1992 where I discovered Hardcore, women and weed – that I’m sitting on too many new tracks and not really sharing the love, let alone mixing them (I haven’t been on my controller for weeks) and you, dear reader/part-time raver, deserve more than that.
The amen smashers I’ve obtained lately are mentalist, with said breakbeat chopped up, changed up, mashed up, messed up with snares ripped to shreds and crashes asunder. I was kindly given a promo last week that humbled me to the bone of new stuff from Monochrome Recordings that grabbed my attention and made me look through their back catalogue which led me onto similar labels and artists; indeed, you’ll discover an awful lot of material by Jon Tetly, amen-boom programming business that I can only dreeeeam of. Note ASC’s new(ish) offering, a thunderstorm of heavy amen pouring going back to the artist’s style of fifteen years previous. The track WindChime in particular got me truly back into drum and bass back in ‘03 and was actually the very first digital tune that I owned. I then duly put it on an MP3 player that cost me £60, held less than an eighth of a gigabyte of files, ran on 2x AA batteries and was about the size of a box of Swan Vestas matches.
An actual box of oldskool Swan Vestas matches. I couldn’t find the MP3 player I owned on Google Images. Probably because it was so shit.
There’s also a good battle vs. the Rez Junglist in the mix yet admittedly by the end of the session after over 4,500 seconds – plus a few Peronis – I looked like Doc Emmett Brown.
Not an actual likeness of DJ Swipez. I hope.
So brace yourself for some rocket-fuelled 175 bpm beat mayhem with obligatory clangs, and make sure you wear your seatbelt. No, sod that, strap into your safetyharness. Probably best to pop a helmet on too. Jeee-suz, I’m off for a lie down with some panpipe music.
Jungle Forever 