OK, I’m not gonna lie… this is not the best jungle record I’ve ever posted here. These tracks are cool but overall I wouldn’t say it’s a favorite or anything. Still, it’s interesting record, features Mad Professor, and I basically conned myself into paying way too much for it yesterday because I found it at some random record sale and was stoked to find a weird jungle record I had never heard of before. Also, it was interesting to find one which had so many jungle mixes (usually ragga records featuring jungle mixes have max 1-2)
When I got it home though, I realized a few things that made me rethink my purchase:
- “quite a few tracks” = actually 5 tracks a side… meaning it’s unspinnable because the gain has to be cranked all the way up to make it audible
- I could have bought a CD version for $4 online, negating the volume issue…
- there’s links to full copies of this all over the net for some reason
- some tracks are cool but few I’d really consider spinning, bringing into question why I’d want it on vinyl to begin with
All of this leads me to believe it probably wasn’t the smartest purchase… For what I paid for this ($18), I could have bought me a random 2, maybe 3 cheap records on my wantlist . Ah well, now that I have it, no way I’m letting it go to waste.. so here’s two of my favorites from this record.
“Masaruni” is a pretty damn crazy jungle track… all sorts of stuff going on. “Cry of the Woolf” has the never-fail combo of jungle breaks + wolf/dog barking sounds, along with some nice filtering and bits of amen peaking in here and there.
95? i always figured this stuff was from 2005 or something, seemed a little too gimmicky i suppose, you know, making too big a deal out of the whole “jungle” thing taking away a bit from the authenticity.
Yeah but I think there were loads of “jungle” themed gimmicks comps back then, ala this:
http://www.discogs.com/Various-Deep-In-The-UK-Jungle/release/595118
this one is cool but the second volume i think is an absolute underrated classic, and it got me into both dub and jungle when i was in high school:
http://www.discogs.com/Rupununi-Safari-Steaming-Jungle-The-Jungle-Dub-Experience-2/master/168773
and ha, i have that 12″. that and a few other similar releases seemed to come out of the miami car stereo bass scene, and i love them just because of that sort of outsider attempt to make jungle.
yeah, definitely love finding those now… some of those bass CDs have weird proto-hardcore/breaks (or more like post-hardcore since they were made 1996-2002, way after oldskool’s heyday heyday), but with big omnipresent bass.
I am sorry to disagree, as I think rather than wrestle with the intricacies of jungle, the the Mad Professor wisely involves experienced junglists. To my ears their input definitely makes this and the superior second chapter completely credible and respectful fusions of dub and authentic jungle. There’s nothing gimmicky going on here.
Aso worth checking is the glorious Super Ape in the Jungle (with Lee Perry).
I don’t really know anything about the jungle artists involved with it and I’m not saying it’s terrible or anything (in fact I said it’s “cool” above just not 100% deadliest dubplate fiyaahh or anything), the “gimmick” comment comes the fact that it’s clearly not a jungle producer making it yet it’s a jungle record with “jungle” in the title of half the tracks – seemed a bit concept-y/gimmicky to me. Doesn’t mean the music is shit, I actually like the tracks above which is why I posted them 🙂