What we're seeing in DnB right now is the convergence of a number of elements that have been developing in dance music (somewhat separately) over the past four or five years.
Obviously there's the footwork influence, but it's coming through indirectly, as interpreted by guys like Machinedrum and Om Unit (and the whole Cosmic Bridge thing) - so when it finally works its way out of the London producers it's kind of cleaned up. There are very few (if any) UK producers who can reproduce that raw quality, and the strange rhythmic logic, of Chicago Juke (and now it looks like Rashad is moving away from that sound, towards something more atmospheric). Nevertheless there's something about what's coming from that direction - it's not any one specific stylistic marker, just a sense of space and organization, I guess - that's there in some of the newer DnB tracks I've heard.
Then there's the Autonomic thing, which is drawing on a dark, distopian techno aesthetic, very Detroit-centric, right down to the Robocop and Blade Runner references (Boddika, Jon Convex, etc.). Obviously Vangelis is important, as is Drexciya. The half-step thing (which supposedly comes by way of Dubstep) is also key. It's not "rough", or "rude", or "London" - it's actually remarkably displaced.
So I think it's interesting that those two cities - Detroit and Chicago - have spawned these advanced mutant genres that are now supposedly merging, or compromising, or whatever. It doesn't seem like "Jungle is back" - have you heard the new Samurai comp? Half the tracks are these insanely minimal things with barely any drums - just a hint of them, not much.
Sidenote: Does anyone else miss Consequence's older style? His new stuff is too glitch for me. I miss his early drums.
