Jungle / D&B mixes

[chris979899]

Does anybody know of any great 90s jungle or d&b mixes? I'm looking for more experimental stuff if anyone can help me? I just wanted to see if it had that side to it. I found some "intelligent jungle mixes" (gross genre naming, I know) but they were just liquid d&b (which is great also) but not what I'm looking for now.

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[DollyNipples]

Here's a remix I did back in the days of Acidplanet, back when it was declining: https://archive.org/details/acidplanet-audio-01396342 - was a fun one to do but probably not my absolute favourite. Did some synthpop/trance remixes back then, as well as some industrial and chiptune-ish ones.

[chris979899]

Does anybody know of any great 90s jungle or d&b mixes? I'm looking for more experimental stuff if anyone can help me? I just wanted to see if it had that side to it. I found some "intelligent jungle mixes" (gross genre naming, I know) but they were just liquid d&b (which is great also) but not what I'm looking for now.

You might get overloaded here. Lots of great mixes from the golden days when producers could test their shit and then play them out in a club with a hundred sweaty bodies the very next day. Define 'great', define 'jungle', define 'd&b'.

Best place to ask this question is https://www.dogsonacid.com/

In case you didn't know, but you probably did. Perhaps you are looking for a second opinion. Also, really, define 'experimental'. Much of that age was truly experimental. They worked around what would sell on vinyl, what would sell (work) in clubs, what they liked making, what they thought the future was. What they could get away with while still getting paid and making their mates laugh at all the injokes. Sometimes they took things too far...

For me, two Masters, ok, three, led the field. Or was it four? Er...

First up Dom & Roland.

Second up Ed Rush & Optical.

In no particular order.

They were taking jungle music and reforming it, reshaping it. I would call that experimental. But they always had a solid base of actually being 'DJ's as well, at least in the sense that they went out and played clubs with both theirs and others music. They traveled the world (still do) and they rock clubs as far away as Japan and Australia. They've never really left their roots, never courted the bigtime even when it came a-knocking. They stayed true and never sold out, man. So they kind of have a certain 'authority'. Very 'eavy, very 'umble, so to speak.

Around that time when things were getting re-badged and everyone was looking for the next greatest new sub-genre to cash in on, these boys were mixing it up and probably created at least 2 or 3 sub-genres themselves (each). The whole tech-step thing as it was labeled led on to the whole liquid and neurofunk scene, or so I seem to remember, not an authority, this is just my (probably) twisted viewpoint. I like a bit of both, but when it left its more industrial dystopian weltanschauung, and got a bit hippy-dippy-flowery, well... give me the old-school 'tech-step' back any day. Not the catchiest of names. Never really promoted. Just a slice of human life at the time. It's the "Sine Qua Non" though if you ask me, for the myriad of scenes that would evolve later from it. They would have evolved, all the same, but still. It's just that it drove so many evolutions from a single point source. Like a Jungle/Drum and Bass Big Bang, if you like.

They were also straddling the super success that only very few artists like Goldie were getting. Respected, but still their own men, they branched out on their own but still held deeper roots within the more commercial scene. Goldie wasn't really commercial when he started off, but he ended up selling a lot of records. Don't know, but it's probably a whole lot more than any of those from that little enclave did.

It was quite a small and select and exclusive scene in the higher echelons, the heights of which Dom and Ed and Optical resided in. Not to mention other big players like Rob Playford. There's just too many other big players, but in this particular nucleus think in the 'dozens' at the very top at the most. Probably less.

They were hard workers. Not just honing their skills in the studio, but also taking it out again later to see what worked and what REALLY worked, and probably a few of those odd Must Not, Push, Those Buttons, Again, moments. Who knows. I wasn't really there. And even when I was, I wasn't.

I think the movement around that time was where the real alchemy was taking place *, and I think those two (three? four?) protagonists were among the highest of the sourcerers. Even if they weren't at the very top of the list of highest amounts of records sold. Then again they were close. They were back door men. Just like JJ Cale was. They played JJ Cale to Eric Clapton's Goldie. Maybe.

It wasn't long after that some people decided to make up the neurofunk thing, the liquid thing, give or take, and no dissing of the people who took that whole tech-step thing further. But for me it was obviously a watered down version of what went before. I liked it dark, I liked it nasty, I liked it uplifting, I liked them bringing the future to me.

I liked the techno they sometimes mixed in to it. I marvelled at the technical ability of some of the productions they came up with (didn't call it 'tech-step' for nothing). I liked its 'punk' no rules man outlook. I liked the work ethic. I liked the fact that you never really knew what you were going to get. I liked the fact it all worked on speed and e and weed. Or both! Maths. Never my strong point. Logic, even less.

Just my humble opinion. Happy to be called out or shouted down. Everyone has different opinions on this. Depending on how you were in the scene. I was never really in the scene, so my words should need a double dose of salt.

However, I've dug up a couple of playlists for you to peruse. As requested.

First up:

Ed Rush & Optical - Virus Vaults Mix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlOvr3_M4GA

Second up:

All Ed Rush & Optical Mix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij2x_EY ... rt_radio=1


You can find hotter takes of their music out there, but I think those two playlists are somewhat representative of the kind of 'experimental flux' to which you allude. Everyone else can give their favourite banging 'choon'.

And not forgetting Dom & Roland, here is mine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2_xQ2iaKV8


I'll just leave it at that otherwise you'll get lost.


This is also a good site if you want to learn a bit more about the different genres and how they all came about and spilled over:

http://12edit.com/jungle/




*
And if you think that kind of alchemy and sourcery has stopped by these wizards just because they're putting on a few years or a few pounds, well. Ed Rush only ever had half his bloody 'Ed to work with in the first place. And many more will debate he never really had a full brain. But he's no mug. Do you think a little thing like being crippled by old age is gonna stop him? Only death itself and the great grim reaper shall be his judgement day, and to quote Enstein himself: "Even then, I'm not so sure!".

Thank you so much for your reply. Very helpful indeed. To be honest I don't really get what I mean myself about intelligent d&b I guess I've always listened to like venetian snares, aphex, squarepusher, ruby my dear etc and they always get bundled into that idm nonsense genre pigeonholing. I guess it's just very glitchy d&b like breakcore.

Thank you for the videos also, I notice some names so will get onto them thank you.

[chris979899]

Here's a remix I did back in the days of Acidplanet, back when it was declining: https://archive.org/details/acidplanet-audio-01396342 - was a fun one to do but probably not my absolute favourite. Did some synthpop/trance remixes back then, as well as some industrial and chiptune-ish ones.

That's excellent I love it!

[DollyNipples]

Here's a remix I did back in the days of Acidplanet, back when it was declining: https://archive.org/details/acidplanet-audio-01396342 - was a fun one to do but probably not my absolute favourite. Did some synthpop/trance remixes back then, as well as some industrial and chiptune-ish ones.

That's excellent I love it!

Thanks! Managed to find a lot of my old mixes recently. Might upload them sometime. Also, I uploaded a couple programs that I thought were gone forever. Simmolator: https://archive.org/details/simmolator and ER-0: https://archive.org/details/er-0_20210504 Both are kind of interesting, though ER-0's GUI has a LOT to be desired. The knobs are just there for show - the parameters are actually controlled by sliders on the bottom. ER-0 is also rather finicky when being installed.