Windows, Volume Two

Jungle versus drum and bass: what’s the difference? While the two terms are somewhat interchangeable, by the mid-90s “drum and bass” largely replaced “jungle” while the fans, DJs and producers were still known as “junglists”.

Jungle’s most salient elements were the sped-up breakbeats—originally sampled from old soul and jazz-funk records for hip hop—and sub-bass using sine waves often taken from the TR-808 drum machine. Jungle was rooted in Jamaican ragga and dancehall, and relied heavily on samples. In the early 90s, junglists used used hardware samplers and “tracker” software on now-defunct computers like the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga to assemble their tracks.

By the mid-90s, Apple and Microsoft dominated the desktop computer market, with Cubase the effective industry standard for digital audio. Operating systems like Windows ’95 made it easier than ever for musicians to produce their own basement recordings (hence the title of this series).

A new generation of producers rose to prominence in the mid-90s and helped evolve jungle into the DnB sound. Basement Records, founded by Jack Smooth and Basement Phil, hired Alex Reece as a studio engineer at a time when the label was at its most prolific. Smooth and Reece, perhaps more than any other producers, moved jungle from its sample-heavy, cut-up breakbeat sound into a steadier, MIDI-driven format driven by keyboards and individual, one-shot percussion samples, as the genre drifted away from ragga and into jazz elements.

This month’s mix features three cuts by Jack Smooth, one from Alex Reece, with DnB fusion from Jamiroquai, roots-heavy jungle dub by More Rockers, and everything inbetween.