Thrive in '95 - Jungle's zenith

Client Eastwood

Well-known member
Source Direct - A Made up Sound

This tune always reminds me of summer. Scattered fragments of 2nd gen apache rolling over and coalescing into new shapes, time itself hesitating then tripping over itself... precise deployment of abstract minimal melody.

A made up sound indeed.


Great tune that. Genuine question, is this (and some other tunes in this thread) drum n bass though? Sure the lineage is from Jungle. When did the split, if you see it that way, happen?

See also Consiouness by Photek, do you see that as Jungle?
 

droid

Well-known member
I didn't say it was 'best', I said it was when it was most like itself and unlike anything else. Adulthood - a zenith of identity.
 

droid

Well-known member
Great tune that. Genuine question, is this (and some other tunes in this thread) drum n bass though? Sure the lineage is from Jungle. When did the split, if you see it that way, happen?

See also Consiouness by Photek, do you see that as Jungle?

I don't think we should get sidetracked with that perennial argument. You can define this by time period, sonic characteristics, vibe... lets just say that we enter into a grey zone in 95 that gets increasingly dark over the following couple of years.
 

Client Eastwood

Well-known member
I don't think we should get sidetracked with that perennial argument. You can define this by time period, sonic characteristics, vibe... lets just say that we enter into a grey zone in 95 that gets increasingly dark over the following couple of years.

Happy to leave out the semantics and go with your point above.
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
Never heard the Babylon track before. Wow. Getting hit in rapid succession by that heavy kick does something to my brain.

Also, wow to the override track. What a weird and compelling beat. The creativity happening around this time is unsurpassed in pretty much all genres throughout dance music history. Psychedelic.

Photek was firing on multiple cylinders this year eh?
 
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blissblogger

Well-known member
I didn't say it was 'best', I said it was when it was most like itself and unlike anything else. Adulthood - a zenith of identity.

I agree with this idea, but it raises a question or two

We tend to regard genres as organic or biological entities - as a person (growing through the ages of man: infancy, childhood, adolescence etc etc) or as an ecosystem (evolving, mutating, expanding, assimilating, withering)

Does this make sense - seeing social constructions and assemblages as living, quasi-natural systems? It seems irresistible to think of them in those terms but I wonder if there's any reality to it.

But going with that conception of a sound or subculture as a living, growing thing - that leads to the melancholy thought: when a genre achieves adulthood (formative phase completed, influences shaken off) it enters its prime, but that can only ever be a brief moment before the next step, the onset of decline and senescence.

With genres, that doesn't take the form of the musical equivalent of arthritis or Alzheimer's, but genres as they age out do mimic one characteristic of the aging mind, which is inflexibility and an inability to generate fresh perceptions or thoughts.

The character hardens and becomes a confinement.

It happens to genres and individual artists alike - they become predictable. You know what they are going to say before they open their mouths. They repeat the same anecdotes. They have their little catchphrases.

It's that thin line between achieved style and self-parodic mannerism.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Wow, great post. Mannerism is a really interesting way of thinking about it.

1994 was so exciting that there was this sense of infinite possibilities, that it would go on getting better and newer for ever. It was a bit of a shock and took some time to realise that it not only hadn't, but had got worse. It had started making aesthetic concessions.
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
We tend to anthropomorphise stuff. And when it's things people create it tends to follow the same paths people take. Echoing
 

droid

Well-known member
I agree with this idea, but it raises a question or two

We tend to regard genres as organic or biological entities - as a person (growing through the ages of man: infancy, childhood, adolescence etc etc) or as an ecosystem (evolving, mutating, expanding, assimilating, withering)

Does this make sense - seeing social constructions and assemblages as living, quasi-natural systems? It seems irresistible to think of them in those terms but I wonder if there's any reality to it.

But going with that conception of a sound or subculture as a living, growing thing - that leads to the melancholy thought: when a genre achieves adulthood (formative phase completed, influences shaken off) it enters its prime, but that can only ever be a brief moment before the next step, the onset of decline and senescence.

With genres, that doesn't take the form of the musical equivalent of arthritis or Alzheimer's, but genres as they age out do mimic one characteristic of the aging mind, which is inflexibility and an inability to generate fresh perceptions or thoughts.

The character hardens and becomes a confinement.

It happens to genres and individual artists alike - they become predictable. You know what they are going to say before they open their mouths. They repeat the same anecdotes. They have their little catchphrases.

It's that thin line between achieved style and self-parodic mannerism.

I guess the objectively correct approach to take would put us somewhere in the bounds of complexity theory, which is an outgrowth of (Eno's favourite) Norbert's systems theory. A music scene would be viewed as a complex adaptive process in this framework.

But as you say, I dont know if, as humans, its possible NOT to see things that way, and of course the symbolic virtues of this viewpoint resonate deeply. 'As Above So Below; As Within So Without' the panpsychic maxim, an outgrowth of the alchemic tradition of philosophy.

Plus it makes sense, especially with how you've phrased it above.
 

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
ooh, 1995, great year. it's when I first got into this music as a teenager.

this tune was the first one that I remember being 'holy fuck, what is THAT?!?!' I had always been into sci-fi, and this seemed to be the most pure expression of science fiction in music I had ever heard; it still sounds incredible 25 years later:

 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
Your Sound. That beat is etched into memory from when I was 11 or 12 listening to 1 in the jungle. When I think back to that time it's that exact track that plays in my head. So raw
 

luka

Well-known member
Jungle is 93 94. 95 is not music it's a tv show. But I'm not rising to the bait. I've never heard splash Babylon it's terrible.
 

luka

Well-known member
Herein we make the case for the enduring beauty of 95 jungle, the year that the genre was shorn of overt external influences and grew into an utterly unique multi faceted musical artifact.

We begin with some slightly obscure ethereal soulfulness from Override/AKA Klute:


Feel free to chime in or heckle.

This is fine tbh but it ain't jungle
 

luka

Well-known member
Babylon - Trace remix

Probably the best tune of '95, perhaps the greatest tune in all of jungle. A synthesis of all that came before. Ecstatic artcore pad intro with just a hint of unease, and then the drop! Dogs, sirens - a dense twilight dialogue of disorientation leading to that moment at 4 minutes when it effortlessly ramps into a higher dimension of brutality. A masterpiece.


Honorable mention must go to the original version. Sagas could be written about the moment at 1 minute when the entire tune drops out for that split second chime. An instant of whimsical genius. And then 2:49 when the bouncing bass comes in alongside Splash's trademark call and response snares... it could roll on forever as far as I'm concerned.


I hate the ugly drums on this tune I've never heard.
 
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