Thrive in '95 - Jungle's zenith
- Thread starter droid
- Start date
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Burial on "that ramshackle thing":
Yeah, I admire people who understand complicated programs or whatever. But I’m not that into tunes that are so sequenced that all you can hear is the perfect grid, e ven on the echoes. With those kind of tunes, sometimes I just hear Tetris music, i always know where i am in the tune so i cant get lost in it, no rough edges in some tunes even when they try hard to sound rough. I want to learn one day how to make tunes properly , but I wanted to do a tribute to my rubbish, dying computer. It starts smoking sometimes and the screen flickers like a strobelight, it mashes your eyes. The tunes are made where they’re made, somewhere in my building, the roof or wherever, but not in some airtight studio. Loads of the album was made with the TV on. I wish i could make technical proper music one day but people who want technical music maybe won’t like my new tunes but its not for them.
- - -
What I realised is I don’t know what he does … quantised them… he’s got kit I don’t have so I started covering everything in crackle, to hide it, bury it, so I could do those drums I love. I didn’t have the equipment to make it sound like Photek-fucking-sculpted, proper heavy, El-B heavy. So I had no choice but to put the crackle on it and get away with it.
- - -
It’s not the drums, it’s the impression of the drums. I’ve done bare drums I love – but then they fall apart when some studio boy says “oh your snare’s too loud.” But that’s the pirate sound… just rollage. Not an individual drum sound, it’s something else. It’s just the spirit of it, the roll of it. The drums, they’re slinky. Cold sounding. They could go anywhere. And I know some of that stuff sounds well dated, but I love it.
- - -
So I had to do that, but have cut-up vocals and have that slinky bumping feel to it, and not get weighed down in big drums and the big snares. With Garage the drums are taken back, they’re quite soft, it’s more about being slinky. They’re like a fishbone, a spine, an exoskeleton that cradles the sounds. It’s not about the deepest kick or the biggest snare. The drums are more about trying to thread sounds and vocals together, they flicker across the surface of the tune, it circles around you, its not just chopping you up, its not about the sounds being big.
- - -
That’s happened to a lot of music. It's detailed in a boring way. I’m not into big intros, because if you’ve got a big intro, the rest of the tune is forever the rest of the tune, and the intro’s forever the intro. You can never get lost in it, you know where you are in most tunes, and that just takes away the only reason a tune should exist to me, I can't relate to grey music. I like tunes that just dive straight in, there’s a jump off and once you’re in it, the awareness that you’re two minutes into a tune, or four minutes into a tune is gone. That’s how I like my tunes. Or something like Robert Hood, just pure presence, shark-like, elements woven together. You can sense them sitting there rolling out the tune.
Yeah, I admire people who understand complicated programs or whatever. But I’m not that into tunes that are so sequenced that all you can hear is the perfect grid, e ven on the echoes. With those kind of tunes, sometimes I just hear Tetris music, i always know where i am in the tune so i cant get lost in it, no rough edges in some tunes even when they try hard to sound rough. I want to learn one day how to make tunes properly , but I wanted to do a tribute to my rubbish, dying computer. It starts smoking sometimes and the screen flickers like a strobelight, it mashes your eyes. The tunes are made where they’re made, somewhere in my building, the roof or wherever, but not in some airtight studio. Loads of the album was made with the TV on. I wish i could make technical proper music one day but people who want technical music maybe won’t like my new tunes but its not for them.
- - -
What I realised is I don’t know what he does … quantised them… he’s got kit I don’t have so I started covering everything in crackle, to hide it, bury it, so I could do those drums I love. I didn’t have the equipment to make it sound like Photek-fucking-sculpted, proper heavy, El-B heavy. So I had no choice but to put the crackle on it and get away with it.
- - -
It’s not the drums, it’s the impression of the drums. I’ve done bare drums I love – but then they fall apart when some studio boy says “oh your snare’s too loud.” But that’s the pirate sound… just rollage. Not an individual drum sound, it’s something else. It’s just the spirit of it, the roll of it. The drums, they’re slinky. Cold sounding. They could go anywhere. And I know some of that stuff sounds well dated, but I love it.
- - -
So I had to do that, but have cut-up vocals and have that slinky bumping feel to it, and not get weighed down in big drums and the big snares. With Garage the drums are taken back, they’re quite soft, it’s more about being slinky. They’re like a fishbone, a spine, an exoskeleton that cradles the sounds. It’s not about the deepest kick or the biggest snare. The drums are more about trying to thread sounds and vocals together, they flicker across the surface of the tune, it circles around you, its not just chopping you up, its not about the sounds being big.
- - -
That’s happened to a lot of music. It's detailed in a boring way. I’m not into big intros, because if you’ve got a big intro, the rest of the tune is forever the rest of the tune, and the intro’s forever the intro. You can never get lost in it, you know where you are in most tunes, and that just takes away the only reason a tune should exist to me, I can't relate to grey music. I like tunes that just dive straight in, there’s a jump off and once you’re in it, the awareness that you’re two minutes into a tune, or four minutes into a tune is gone. That’s how I like my tunes. Or something like Robert Hood, just pure presence, shark-like, elements woven together. You can sense them sitting there rolling out the tune.
1995 ragga jungle on SL2's Awesome label. This firmly falls in the 'closer to 1994' camp. Who was Devious D anyways? I have a couple of top knotch ragga jungle remixes from him, but otherwise know nothing about the guy.
(Shameless plug time: I used this on this ragga jungle mix)
(Shameless plug time: I used this on this ragga jungle mix)
this thread has had me looking at the 1995 stuff I have in my Discogs collection (yes I put my whole record collection in Discogs and stuck it in relevant folders, I am that sad), and I saw that this came out in 1995.
what an incredible tune! beautiful pads, rolling breaks, and what a bassline when it drops. love super shufflers like this one.
gotta put your headphones on for this one, computer speakers don't do it justice
what an incredible tune! beautiful pads, rolling breaks, and what a bassline when it drops. love super shufflers like this one.
gotta put your headphones on for this one, computer speakers don't do it justice
luka
Well-known member
Must admit I enjoyed this one
droid
Well-known member
Bill Riley - The Chill
Time for some more Bristol (was Bill Riley even from Bristol though?). One of the deepest releases on Full Cycle. Rollin' breaks punctuated by a soft hat on the 8s, then the full jazz combo; bass, rhodes and trumpet. But wait! What's that at 2:55? Only a tearin' rollout that builds and builds, dragging that lazy snare roll along after it until the apache comes in and kicks things up to the next level, all culminating in a wonderfully poignant melodic crescendo.
Its tunes like this that made 'musicality' a thing in jungle, and listening to this again it almost feels worth it.
Time for some more Bristol (was Bill Riley even from Bristol though?). One of the deepest releases on Full Cycle. Rollin' breaks punctuated by a soft hat on the 8s, then the full jazz combo; bass, rhodes and trumpet. But wait! What's that at 2:55? Only a tearin' rollout that builds and builds, dragging that lazy snare roll along after it until the apache comes in and kicks things up to the next level, all culminating in a wonderfully poignant melodic crescendo.
Its tunes like this that made 'musicality' a thing in jungle, and listening to this again it almost feels worth it.
While we're on the subject of Brizzle, I've always been a big fan of this 1995 remix.
It's got jazzy elements, but it doesn't sound like a shampoo commercial. It's both a shuffly roller AND an Amen tearout. It can make you dance and you can chill out to it, too. It's got something for all the family!
It's got jazzy elements, but it doesn't sound like a shampoo commercial. It's both a shuffly roller AND an Amen tearout. It can make you dance and you can chill out to it, too. It's got something for all the family!
droid
Well-known member
Krome & Time - Ganja Man (DJ Hype Remix)
It's about time we paid homage to one of the most instinctive dancefloor forces in Jungle. Alongside Trace, Foul Play and Origin Unknown, Hype is one of those artists who consistently pushed the art of the remix to eclipse the original tune. Some awesome creativity after the amen drop on this. Hammering in sync with the bass, pitching the breaks all the way down and then way up again, filling in gaps in the beats you didnt even know existed via some kind of fractal witchcraft, then flicking between a range of increasingly demented loops as it barrels to conclusion. The original is good, but this is next level.
It's about time we paid homage to one of the most instinctive dancefloor forces in Jungle. Alongside Trace, Foul Play and Origin Unknown, Hype is one of those artists who consistently pushed the art of the remix to eclipse the original tune. Some awesome creativity after the amen drop on this. Hammering in sync with the bass, pitching the breaks all the way down and then way up again, filling in gaps in the beats you didnt even know existed via some kind of fractal witchcraft, then flicking between a range of increasingly demented loops as it barrels to conclusion. The original is good, but this is next level.
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
this is gorgeous
droid's turning me all tasteful
droid's turning me all tasteful
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
was 1995 the year of bass science in jungle?
droid
Well-known member
Spoiling my fun again.
blissblogger
Well-known member
Has all of 95's hidden treasure been exhausted then? i put them all in one big folder and played them, amazing stuff - what a year indeed - and this thread barely overlaps with my own faves from '95.
(More recent things in the thread all familiar - but the first wave of Droid deposits were largely things i'd never heard or heard of - which is really alarming given how closely i was following the music that year and indeed the years on either side of it. i guess there was just so much being put out at that high point of its hipness and popularity)
Oh here's another early example of 'step' in a track title - that's 1993
(More recent things in the thread all familiar - but the first wave of Droid deposits were largely things i'd never heard or heard of - which is really alarming given how closely i was following the music that year and indeed the years on either side of it. i guess there was just so much being put out at that high point of its hipness and popularity)
Oh here's another early example of 'step' in a track title - that's 1993
luka
Well-known member
Like I said to the others these lists don't go anywhere. They are resources which can be consulted by scholars for generations.