Hex returns to the Dojo decks for the May instalment of the monthly podcast featuring all the best releases dropping this month. Beats inside from Digital, Toronto Is Broken, Amoss, Dexta, Crypticz, Phase & Villem and many more, crossing the styles from dark tech to rolling liquid, bassy halftime to amen junglism and everything in between. Watch out for unreleased dubs from Xorcore and Midik too.
As always you can check out the podcast via Soundcloud below or head to Youtube or iTunes to stream. You can also grab a download from Google Drive.
Eighteen months old and still going strong, Dojo boss Hex is back on the decks this month with another selection of all the best beats from the inbox. Tracks inside this month from Apex, War, Invadhertz, Spirit, Missing, Mark Kloud and loads more.
As always you can check out the podcast via Soundcloud below or head to Youtube or iTunes to stream. You can also grab a download from Google Drive.
Today’s exclusive is another slice of wicked old school jungle as Lossless Music continue their excellent run of Dope Plates EPs. Phillipines-based Brit Scape comes correct with some serious break chopping badness on Escapism. Straight back to the early 90s sound! Look for this one coming early March on vinyl and digital alongside new retro-inspired tracks form Sicknote and Mark Kloud. Yes yes!
Jungle heads rejoice; dgoHn returns to Love Love for another wicked EP of choppy breakbeat goodness this month. Title track So Be It Lumbricina combines the breakbeat chaos of harder edged jungle with softer elements of drumfunk and ambient D&B for a wonderful montage of the hectic and the serene. Dooky meanwhile takes things in a creepier direction, eerie key chimes and unusual samples lending the track a faintly haunted vibe. Both tracks bring to mind vintage tracks by the likes of DJ Trax and Paradox, but filtered through a jungle/breakcore sensibility for that extra edge on the beats.
Last but by no means least, Rognvald is on hand to remix the title track, amping up the break chopping even further for an absolutely full-tilt, face-melting assault of snare rolls and rapidfire drum glitches. Serious danger on this one. As always you can grab this one direct from the source via the Love Love Bandcamp. Do it!
Hex kicks off 2018 with the usual full-spectrum D&B selection for the first podcast of the year. New beats inside from John Rolodex, Paradox, AudioSketch, SubMarine and many more, plus unreleased dubs from GY96 and Just Jungle. Get to know…
As always you can check out the podcast via Soundcloud below or head to Youtube or iTunes to stream. You can also grab a download from Google Drive.
160 jungle straight outta Helsinki on today’s exclusive as Hmr lands on one of our favourite imprints down under, Beat Spectrum. Supa Dupa is a classic jungle rinser; big sub, ragga samples and those crispy crispy breakbeats. More of this please! Check out the track below and watch out for this dropping Jan 26th at all the usual outlets.
Fans of the recent boom in “future jungle” will definitely be into this one; Evol Intent Recordings present the latest in their intermittent but excellent release schedule with a top class EP from San Francisco producer UFO!
Better known in recent years for lower-tempo bass music and trap beats, UFO! returns to his jungle roots for this EP, keeping things frantic but still melding in plenty of unusual influences from elsewhere in the electronic spectrum.
YGMFU kicks things off with booming bass and classic jungle breaks, while Thing Into My Brain takes cues from footwork with its combination of syncopated sub rhythm and hyperactive vocal cut ups. This one is a proper ear-worm, and the rapidity just makes it all the more infectious.
Logue combines more of that dangerous breakbeat intensity with hip-hop influenced bass vibrations worthy of fellow SF basshead EPROM, leaving Ghost Behaviour to dial things down a notch for a light-edged shuffle with a slightly tropical sound.
Four hyped-up future jungle cuts lovingly sandwiched between spacey intro/outro material makes for a wicked little EP! Here’s hoping we hear more 170 business from UFO! in the future; check out the beats below and hit up your favourite digital store to grab the EP right now.
When it comes to genre-defining albums, it doesn’t get much more legendary than New Forms. Propelling underground D&B into the mainstream musical limelight and snatching the Mercury Music Prize for good measure, the album delighted heads and newcomers alike, blending rapid drum programming with influences from jazz and hip-hop to form the perfect fusion of organic and electronic. Despite not setting out to make a crossover, Roni and the Reprazent gang certainly ended up with one.
Twenty years on, the album is getting a four disc deluxe reissue this month with the full original LP remastered, the full set of “Re Forms” remixes and most tantalisingly of all, a fresh disc featuring a live hardware mix of unreleased edits of the best tracks on the album. So how does it stand up after two decades? Pretty damn well it turns out.
The two discs of the original album have been given a fresh lick of mastering paint and are sounding just as exciting as they did in 1997, full of funky drum programming, enticing synths and classic hooks. Anyone who doesn’t get a shiver from hearing the guitar line on Brown Paper Bag just has no soul! The remixes don’t hold up as well to my ears (with a handful of exceptions) but they always felt like messing with perfection given the sheer quality of the original album.
The live hardware mix meanwhile is an absolute joy from start to finish; all of the album’s iconic tracks are there including some of the lower tempo beats and a number have been re-engineered to mash up originals and remixes, often to great effect. The new edit of Share The Fall featuring elements of Grooverider’s Jeep Style Mix proved a personal highlight amongst a thoroughly enjoyable bonus disc.
If you’re looking for the definitive version of an absolutely essential album then this is unquestionably it. Check out the first disc via Youtube below and hit up your favourite store to grab the deluxe package right now.
Irish tastemakers Rua Sound launch a new sub imprint this month in the form of Foxy Jangle; having focused on the intersection between grime, jungle, d&b and other bass music for the main label, the new outlet will focus entirely on more conventional jungle releases. They couldn’t have picked a better artist to kick-start the label either – Green Bay Wax boss and all round junglist badman Kid Lib is at the controls for the first release, and as you’d expect it is straight fiya!
A-side Blue Dreamers goes in deep with lush pad atmospheres and trippy samples on the intro, lulling you into a false sense of security before the breaks crash into the mix. When the drums come they come hard, replete with tasty edits and classic snare rolls. Flipside That Special Way follows a similar template, with pitched vocals on the intro taking us back to the spirit of the mid 90s ready for another helter skelter selection of kicks and snares.
As with much of the jungle-revival sound there’s nothing especially innovative going on here, but as love-letters to a largely bygone sound go it doesn’t get much more finely engineered than this. Foxy! Check out the clips below and hit up the Rua Sound Bandcamp to pre-order now; vinyl and digital drop Oct 27th.
With releases for the likes of Alpha Cut, Criterion and Eastern Promise Audio, Phuture-T has been chopping up breaks for the better part of a decade and has rightly garnered a reputation as a cracking producer keeping a slightly old-school aesthetic alive within the scene. To celebrate his latest single for Inperspective we tracked him down and asked him for his top 5 breaks! Check it out for some drum rhythm history…
