Jungle Mix

Pearsall from sonicrampage never lets you down with his jungle mixes. This one's called Rolled In The Jungle (Summer Ready Jungle Mix) All Killer No Filler. Just in time for a beautiful & unseasonably warm day in the North-West of Victoria down here in the Antipodes. Loving it...ooh that segue from DJ Krust's Poison to Origin Unknown's Mission Control, nice. Many a mid 90s legend here ie. Goldie, Foul Play, Babylon Timewarp, Tom & Jerry, Dillinja, Run Tings, Roni Size etc. Pearsall presents an Amen-free zone full of rugged soul, ambient drum'n'bass and tough breaks. He's mixing it up with some big tunes and a sprinkling of lesser known trax, all choice cuts. As the brief states Rolled In Sunshine is pretty much all rollers in that exquisite transitional zone before jungle splintered and either got too smooth, too harsh or too boring.

Big ups to Pearsall!

A sweet spot for me is when the jungle gets dubby and Poison certainly does that with a choice bit of sampled(?) reggae.  

The unmistakable sounds of Origin Unknown. Mission Control is pretty minimal and dubby too. A sumptuous trip into a long dark tunnel, know what I mean? 

On The Hi-Fi Part ??? - Jungle/Tech-Step Special

DA INFLUENCE MIX PART 1 - BASIC RHYTHM

I can't really remember how I found this mix. I'm not even sure who Basic Rhythm is but this is a mix of some choice mid 90s jungle cutz. Dillinja is in there and DJ Krust. Plus a whole bunch of stuff I've not heard, heard and can't necessarily id. 

TECHSTEPPIN - VARIOUS (EMOTIF RECORDINGS) 1996

Keeping the hardcore vibes going, I finally got a copy of Techsteppin. After re-appraising Tech-Step a while back when listening to the excellent No U-Turn comp Torque, I thought I'd check this out. While it's still got very faint traces of jazz (the darker side of 70s Miles Davis) there no lightness like there was was in in intelligent or jazzy jungle. Distress, claustrophobia and paranoia are at the heart of darkness in these tunes. Torque, released a year later, would pummel out any source elements of jazz in Tech-Step. Actually by the end of this cd that's pretty much what's happened anyway. This is Drum & Bass that's all about the bass. While the beats keep to an almost military-esque stringency like industrial but vaguely funky, the bass is like subterranean scud missiles breaking through the earth's crust. This thick bass goo hits you like a vengeful blow to the body. Techsteppin contains tracks from No U-Turn luminaries Ed Rush plus Trace & Nico under the aliases of Skyscraper and Rollers Instinct. I guess Doc Scott is like the godfather of Tech-Step who was from the original milieu of Darkside Hardcore (NHS EP, Here Come The Drumz etc.) and he shows up here with a sterling performance on Machines. His Tech-Step swarms, buzzes and drones with astonishingly ominous dread. Techsteppin's harsh urban nowhere reached a bleak dead end and I mean that as a compliment. This is another reason to prove that getting off the hardcore continuum around 1995/96 (which is what I did) was wrong. Get numb.

*"It's too purple. Reading that felt like someone doing a bad impression of you."

*Special comments from Mrs Space Debris. She doesn't pull any punches does she? She didn't appreciate me describing the bass as 'like underground thick pools of mutant goo'. So I rewrote it. Is she my new editor? I don't necessarily take purple as a criticism. I mean the best part of reading Melody Maker in 87/88/89 was the purple prose they used to excite me about the likes of Young Gods, AR Kane, My Bloody Valentine, Loop, Butthole Surfers etc. I was never disappointed when I got my hands on those records either.

PEARSALL PRESENTS SURGICAL SOUNDS - DOC SCOTT

Continuing on with the hardcore........Pearsall presents a mix of the aforementioned Doc Scott. This set includes Scott's remix work for the likes of System 7, Spring Heel Jack and Goldie. Then we've got his own solo tunes plus those under the pseudonym Nasty Habits. Pearsall points out Doc Scott never phoned in his remixes, he makes them his own. Doc's own trax are even more outstanding. Another mix that's a bewdy from Mr Sonicrampage!

On The Hi-Fi Part 40

When I can get Luca Brasi 2 by Kevin Gates off the stereo I listen to some other stuff. This one is a snappy little 37 minute mix from Pearsall over at Sonicrampage. These are drum'n'bass tunes from 95 & 96. There's even one from 99 which is way past my usual cut off point of rarely venturing into or past 96/97. Anyway this is a little rollin' bewdy featuring just 4 different artists - Roni Size, DJ Krust, Bill Riley & DJ Die. The later 2 I'm not particularly sure I'm aware of. Most of these tunes are new to me. I love the little covers Pearsall makes and this one's no exception. Get 90s man.

Geez Mr Nick Edwards is one prolific musician. I think I may have missed a couple of Ekoplekz releases since Influkz. Entropic is just two long trax. Entropy Flash (neat title huh?) which runs at 13 minutes and Entropy Symphony that's around 16 minutes. This EP is more along the lines of his last mini album Influkz ie. it's a more subdued and subtle affair compared to his last two LPs. Then again that's a little deceptive because if you have it at low volume it seems quite nice but with the volume cranked it becomes quite intense and a little sinister. This is music from post-apocalyptic zones or is it outer space? Or perhaps its the landscape/headspace of Ekoplekz right now? Entropy Flash is repetitive almost funky technoid gear that occasionally has flourishes of melody amongst the darker drones and its damn fine as usual. How does he keep up the quality with so much quantity? Entropy Symphony is the swirliest swirly tune ever. It swirls and swirls until it swirls off into a vortex of epic oblivion. This has got to be one of the best Ekoplekz tracks ever. Me like a very lot.

I cannot recall how I came across this mix by Slimzee at Soundcloud All it says in my i-tunes is Truancy Vol. 111: Slimezee. Anyway its more jungle, this time more your 94/95 variety before it became drum'n'bass. Many a classic on here such as Hitman, Babylon and a very well worn copy of The Dark Stranger, why wouldn't it be? It's such a gem. An hour of jungle gold. This is some awesome DJing right here. Not loving that faux faded bollocks look of the virtual cover though. This guy was in Pay As You Go Cartel and pretty much invented Grime, I think. There you go, you learn something every day.

More good stuff from Pearsall. Not The Future We Were Promised... is more of your prime 94/95 jungle. He crams them in here. Thirty Five tunes in just over an hour and a half. It's one hell of a ride. Some classics and some lesser known classics whizz by so hold onto your hats. I guess at this stage you're either into it or you're not. This wouldn't be a bad introduction to jungle though. It would be hard not to be seduced by the 'rhythmic psychedelia' on display here as its soo darn great. This is when it was pretty much just jungle like the above Slimzee mix, post hardcore/darkside and pre drum'n'bass/tech-step/garridge. Huh, the future, it kinda went sideways then nowhere.

Last but not least is 10 Wanted Men's Wanted: Dead Or Alive which is Memphis Rap 1995 stylee. This features Memphis legends Tommy Wright III, Womack Da Omen and Princess Loco. Women in 90s Memphis rap are so fucking cool. They just really suit the vibe of this creepin shyt. Still getting my head around this one but fuck it sounds good so far. This is the real rap underground on absurdly lo-fi tapes. This ain't no backpacker shit! (RE: This article at FACT) Whatever the fuck that is? I have a feeling it means shite rap ie. rap that couldn't make the charts because it was shite so they tried to then pretend they were like indie or something, but in reality they were just a laughing stock. Obviously some people got sucked into their shtick though.

The 90s Again....

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