Matt Jackson Reviews 7 Big Jungle Tracks

Matt Jackson Reviews 7 Massive Jungle tracks for Junglist Network

Matt gives reviews 7 Jungle tracks for us goes a little deeper into the mix,

Junglist Reviews:

Speak – Let Me Go / Pliability
J-Kon – Astral Servant
Akinsa – Embrace Death
DJ Badshape – Dubcore 27
Opius – A Thousand Memories
Mark Force ft Jamelee – Prophecy
Dubplate Union – Xr3i blues

Review of SpeaK – Let Me Go / Pliability

Speak’s self released stuff definitely warrants full investigation and it covers a wonderfully wide variety of moods and styles. Having had a fun little trawl through the Drumfunk tag on Bandcamp I came across this class piece of work. Paradoxical break work without getting glitchy underpins smooth atmospherics and a jazzy soulful vocal. It does sound a bit like Kite who worked on Blumarten’s last album but unsure if it’s her. Sustained bass notes are the bedrock here harmonising in a minor fashion with the jazzy rhodes. Light breaks chopping keeps things moving whilst the airy vocals ghost overhead. Serious moods of autumn / winter which is perfect for this month. Coldness with just a touch of light illuminating the edges of the clouds. A complimentary piece for the greyness of the season.

Pliability leans further in to jazz. The percussion pauses and flows , hanging on the open hats before introducing more rattling breaks to shift up the groove. Live playing is the order of the day here. Fans of Dacamera and Pinecone Moonshine will have a lot to love here not to mention latter day 4Hero. Live bass and mournful piano are front and centre with shimmering vocals occasionally cutting through and echoing out again. Feeling the sun appear and optimism of spring approaching is the overriding mood tugging at your heart strings. A super organic jungle offering keeping to one of the core musical roots of the sound.

Review of Dubplate Union – Xr3i blues

Some tunes are pure rave weapons and this is one of them. Harking back to the first releases on Slammin Vinyl rave chords, 808 sub bass and the obligatory amens are all in effect (pun intended). Chipmunk vocal not far behind kicks off the breakdown before a mentasm tears the roof off the warehouse. As per it’s inspiration the whole tune is split down in to little sections and cuts between them like Slipmatt. Snares rain down from the skies, chords and dub echoes mash things up and bass plumbs the depths As the vocal states “I’m what you need” and this one needs to be on your USB if you’re a fan of unashamed 93 business.

Review of Mark Force ft Jamelee – Prophecy

Mark Force of G-Force and Seiji fame does a fantastic cover of the original reggae tune by Fabien Miranda and later sampled by Breakage. This isn’t your convention jungle tune as it sticks to the same structure as the original song. Only a few hi hats separate your dancing feet and a thunderous dub bassline which emerges mere seconds in to the tune. Beats stridently step out with a touch of roll on the far reaches of the cuts. That soaring vocal with “our back are now against the wall” is so pertinent to these turbulent times. A protest song for the ages it waits for a good minute or two in to the tune before that classic melody looms monolithically out of the reverberating fog. Some jazz piano briefly provides a mid eight before slamming straight back in to the vocals towering against booming skies. Stunning.

Review of Opius – A Thousand Memories

It’s not often these days that you get hairs stand up on your whole body as the tune begins and this is one such example. A simple but poignant melody stung out across pianos strings is the rolling credits on the intro. Amens step and roll, then an even more gorgeous theme emerges before fading out to a snippet of vocals beckoning you to go back in time. This track was made as a tribute to Opius’s dad and to those of us with a penchant for reminiscing it is hard not to bring a tear to the eye. There is something timeless here in the emotions of longing, and happy summers summed up in musical form that you rarely hear in the jungle. Switching between chords and playful melodies whilst those breaks play on and stutter away. The originally theme returns and fades to round things off , top stuff.

Review of DJ Badshape – Dubcore 27

I’d never heard of Badshape until I was checking out the latest dubcore release on Socialistischer Plattenbrau from Germany which usually serves up some nice jungly breakcore stuff. She really goes straight for the throat on the first tune on the appropriately named Face Breaker. Despite the brutal amen assault and sporadic swearing samples which I can’t get away with playing on FM radio there is a gentleness to the choral samples which come and go throughout this tune. Regimented bass stabs and ever more fried amens seem to get more distorted and warped as things progress. It’s an interesting juxtaposition of heaviness and comedy which is pretty addictive.

Springbird symphony is up next on this EP and brings more of a bass music flavour at around 140 . You could probably get away with playing this in a dark garage set as well. Proper screw face groove and simple amens punctuate the urban flow to the rhythm. Apparently this was mainly made on hardware which make it more impressive, I hadn’t heard Teenage Engineering devices used in this genre before, inspiring stuff. Four to the floor kicks pound away through to the end.

Back to the jungle on Entitled with yet more humorous vocal samples about what someone loves more than their nan. That being a little bit of drum and bass and jungle. Distorted amens bang away at the edges while the wind instruments and lightly arpegiated keys give a subtle edge.
Definitely one for the heads after dark on the bus home.

Fallender Bach rounds things off and is my clear favourite on this EP. Marching intensity and detachment reign. Industrial techno, the sound of factories and detachment are some of the themes expressed in this highly cinematic tune. The sheer confidence of starting a track written more as an intro tune statement is highly impactful. There is no time for slack DJing here. Amen breaks torn to bits is the main rhythmical flavour here somewhat reminding me of early Panacea. Yet even here high flying chords cushion everything before stripping back to bare kicks and bleeps. Soulfully jungle but architecturally techno is how I would describe this huge track.

Review of Akinsa – Embrace Death

As his final parting shot on the Third Foundation label Akinsa brings forth this last lot of 170bpm tunes. Surgically precise production is one of the main things that stands out here. With his trademark half time, bait and switch melodic breakdowns getting ever more pronounced I for one and hoping he will return to the sound again especially after being fully submerged in the tribal sounds pouring forth from himself on this label on a near weekly basis. Appropriate that the theme is death here given the circumstances. Any of these tracks could be in the soundtrack to John Wick or other fast paced action movie with bullets flying . Equally devastating on the dancefloor as on the big screen shades of Junkie XL as well as raw primal rhythms attack at every turn. This is modernity and the ancient brewed up in Soundsystem mangling mayhem. Elsewhere on the album minimal tracks such as Afflicted reveal themselves as the concept of having a drop is ditched in favour of slow burners. When Akinsa collabs with others yet more dimensions to his sound smash through your rig alongside Anku on the huge bassline of Trolls. The intelligent interplay between massive distortion, strangely light sounding drums but in your face bass beatings is mind blowing. Always loving the kick drums over the other percussive elements Akinsa’s VIP of Hostile Planet has a slight EDM flavour but not in any way pandering to the overt melodics that pollute that genre. Shinobi has a touch of Photek in the groove , playful hand drums spin up the melody broken by unholy belches of bass. Harking back to the glory days of mid 2000s dubstep Fading Grey with Xiua has some eastern elements but heavy nods to Tempa. A pretty eclectic bunch of tunes overall.

J-Kon – Astral Servant

Fresh from his stellar Techstep EP on 117 Records J-Kon goes in a more minimal direction on this forward looking collection of tracks on Zodiac Music. The title track’s lurching groove brings to mind Digital at his most off kilter but with even more tendencies to fall over mid dance move. This is one for those who can keep standing in a ferry on some rolling waves for sure. Spooky synths pervade the gloom and the bass is a simple slab of granite. Paratism strips the beat back even further with machine gun riffs and cavernous reflections of sound in to the murk. Could there be something monstrous nearby, this tune is the precursor to a jump scare. Next up is the aptly named Subliminal with Subject 13 styles evident in the industrial wasteland. A much more conventional stepper but no slouch in terms of subtle darkness. Bonin provides a remix of Walk the Skies with pure half time bass weight. The original Walk the Skies on the other hand is so much more abstract , this is a piece of bassbin art. Getting slowed down to quarter speed is certainly one option in moving jungle forward. With the Grave polishing off this selection and nearly tripping over it’s own shoe laces with a pinball rhythm. It’s fresh to hear what is going on the outer reaches of the genre before such things get diluted on the way back to mainstream 170 culture. If you ever had a thing for early Scorn as well as weird 1997 b-sides like me you’ll find plenty to like here.