But this is the part I like! Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not an ideological purist, and I don’t think of politics and aesthetics on the same register. I don’t need to approve of anyone’s thoughts to try and explore and enjoy this music and think about what their vision was, or “champion” something to see value in it.
This isn't about purism thogh. It's hectoring. depressing. Half of the original junglists are anti-vaccers and sympathetic to the tories. So? Their music doesn't lecture to you as if the apolitical music is stupid. It's condescending, way way worse than idm and the term 'intelligent jungle'. But yes, your proximity to punk subculture inhibits you from seeing this.
Now, this does deserve to be called liberal, since its ‘committed art’ and expressing a certain (post-)political petit-bourgeois radlib attitude. Frankly its a politics I particularly despise because of my personal proximity to late punk subculture. But expressing a politics explicitly in art is the gaudy thing, no matter if its bohemian black bloc brain fog or scientific council communism. I don’t go to art for good politics, and bad politics can coincide with great art.
And the shambling incompetence of punk undiscipline is great art? I don't think so! Beethoven's 9th is great art, even if I think it's overrought, overblown, and when he tries to develop melodic orchestral aspects like the scherzo of the 9th, it ends up sounding like nursury rhyme music. But what, pray tell, is great in making a virtue out of incompetence?
The rest of the word vomit about me valourising liberal post-politics I take as baseless slander.
As for the comparison with anime video game jungle, simply lazy smear.
DHR was contemporaneous with jungle/early dnb’s heyday, was nationally distinct, and fused the music they were importing with their own sensibility, birthing a whole new (if regrettable) style of music, breakcore.
No, what was nationally distinct were the various strands of glitch (MoM) german techno (W. Voigt and his Gas/love inc.) projects, force inc. In fact, the most nationally distinct producer from the DHR roster was Patric Cattani, and he never attempted to sound like jungle gotten wrong at all, but created a hyper accelerated and cheeky take on gabber and sample vandalism.
The latter online stuff is a nostalgic-amnesic, internet-enabled recapitulation of ambient jungle, misrecognizing itself as breakcore and misrecognizing jungle as the provenance of mass entertainment and corporate IP.
But that's exactly my point! The dhr boys misrecognised jungle as punk attitude, when it had more to do with the shirts and shoes soul scenes which then moved into house. And come 97, the balance was tilted back in this direction with the advent of distinctive UK garage.
I'm not even a soul or soulful house or rnb purist, I like quite a bit of music one would consider post-punk, noise rock etc. But we have to take the macro view.