It’s been a while since I posted something focused on International Jungle. Luckily, Ricky / Tykal recently sent me this mix he did of all early Jungle/DNB from Russia. For those of you who don’t know Tykal, he’s been a source of knowledge in jungle forums (mainly but not exclusively ragga jungle-centric) for 15 years now, as well as running the ragga jungle label Trinity Don Recordings and busy trading tunes online on soulseek etc. Ricky was one of the early people I remember packing 2000 era mixes full of seriously obscure 90’s jungle stuff, lots of which wasn’t a big deal at the time but has since gone on to be very pricey and hard to find. Also, he ran a nice blog for a while giving away tons of record rips… most of the links are probably dead by now but there’s still some very nice write ups and killer mixes on there.
I’ll admit, I wasn’t 100% sure at first whether to post this mix. While it’s interesting to hear and there’s some really cool tunes in it, some of the tracks earlier in the mix sound later than most of the music I post on BTTO, almost more like pop music with dnb backing beats. Still, when was the last time you listened to a bunch of 90’s jungle meets Russian pop music? You’re certainly not going to her another mix this week like this one!! Big respect to Tykal for digging all these up, also big respect to Gorn and all Russian Junglists / VK Jungle Crew. I’d be happy to post a part 2 sometime if one of you wants to do it.
tracklisting / песню заказать
01 (0:00:00) Transdriver - Spy (Soundtrack) - ТАУ Продукт (1995) 02 (0:02:04) Cosmofonika - Beliya, Bledniya - Citadel Records (2003) 03 (0:04:47) Иосиф Кобзон - Spy-2 - Extraphone (1998) 04 (0:07:11) Линда - Дождь - Real Records (1999) 05 (0:10:12) Hi-Fi - Нить (Remix) - Real Records (1999) 06 (0:13:11) Чугунный Скороход - флора 3001 - Electric Records (1997) 07 (0:16:15) Чугунный скороход - Bocho!! - Electric Records (1997) 08 (0:20:04) Гости из Будущего - Jazz It Up (Part Two) - Classic Company (1998) 09 (0:24:40) J.M.D. - In Quest of Mystics - Unreleased (200X) 10 (0:28:27) Детский Панадолл - Гrека - Citadel Records (1998) 11 (0:31:14) Шао? Бао! - Купыла Мама Коныка - ОРТ-Рекордс (1998) 12 (0:33:22) Борис Гребенщиков и Deadушки - Прекрасный дилетант - Feelee (1998) 13 (0:38:46) DJ Дэн - Лирика - Classic Company (2000) 14 (0:39:59) Мальчишник и Ди-Джей Грув - Я Не Буду С Тобой (Anticapella Jungle Mix) - Элиас Records (1996) 15 (0:42:53) Hi-Fi - Нить - Real Records (1999) 16 (0:46:08) Ди-Джей Кефир и Евгений Арсентьев - Зенит победит! - Zvezda Records (1999) 17 (0:48:25) DJ Дэн - Сила Оружия - Extraphone/DanJet Records (1997) 18 (0:51:05) Storm Crew - Step Off - Extraphone/Ptюch (1997) 19 (0:54:12) The Crude Project - Terrorist - Classic Company (1997) 20 (0:56:14) The Crude Project - Base Problems - Extraphone/DanJet Records (1997) 21 (0:58:26) Неба Жители и 303 Project - Крылья (часть 2) - Мистерия Звука (2007) 22 (1:00:27) Евгений Арсентьев - Вакуум - Respect Records (1999)
Some notes from the man himself:
Due to a hearing problem, I haven’t been able to listen to jungle for a year and a half. It doesn’t look like that situation’s changing, so if it remains the case, this is quite probably my last mix. It was meant to be the first in a series of international jungle mixes focusing on non-UK jungle released between ’94-’99, which generally translates to ’93-’97 in the UK style (and I mean the jungle that kept going into ‘96/’97). I spent years on the research for this, and can tell you there’s some great mid-late ‘90s jungle out there from other countries; I had plans for mixes from Russia, Sweden, Germany, Japan, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Estonia, Australia, the Stars and Stripes, and a couple mixed-country mixes featuring tunes from Canada, Spain, Poland, Greece, Austria, Switzerland, Romania, Brazil, Belgium, and more. Jungle may be British by birth, but it has always been an international phenomenon in my mind, whether we’re talking about the influences that led to its formation, the varied backgrounds of the major and minor players who turned it into a genre in its own right, or the way that this infectious genre caught fire in the ears and hearts of generations of people the world over. Even one of my cats, who’s not particularly fond of noise, liked to sit in front of the speaker and soak herself in jungle’s aural majesty whenever I’d pump it through the house.
Back to the mix, it features a lot of different styles, and includes less amens than you might expect from yours truly, but don’t think for a second that I didn’t splice several tearout sections in for you fiends (my mental black crack track marks are always fresh). I’d ask, however, the average amen addict to go into this with a mind perhaps more open than usual. When these other countries were developing jungle, they weren’t necessarily sticking to the molds and modes prevalent in the UK, so there’s often some mixture of elements that I don’t think most jungle DJs would feel comfortable dropping, including junglesque pop tunes (which I personally LOVE and hereby dub junglepop), jazzgle (cf. my jazzgle series), and siren-crooning affairs from Siberian maidens who happened to poke their heads into the genre from a bygone Atlantis. And, as usual, there were really good amen tunes I intended to put in there, but they didn’t fit the flow when it was coming together (e.g., Mindlab’s “Big Bad Clap”). On the whole, though, I think you’ll agree that the Ruskies put together some stellar oldskool vibes way back when (to say nothing of what they’ve done to new skool and retro jungle), that they even pushed the envelope in places, and that a good Russian imperial stout or Baltic porter, along with what may be my final toast to the Jungle Gods, might be just what the Friday-night doctor ordered.
Thanks to all junglists and junglettes for all the love throughout the years; I see the torches burning and passing from hand to hand.
Good grief, good blood, goodnight.❤️
Tykal
P.S. Thanks to Mr. Sensi and Tim Reaper for the mix request that led to me making this, and to Dev/Null for posting it up on his phenomenal Blog to the Oldskool.P.P.S. Thanks to Joshua Decker aka the Artbreaker for hosting my mixography, which, if you ever find yourself hankering for some Tykal, is open for the taking:
http://grindthieves.com/tykal/mixes/P.P.P.S. Here are links to the jazzgle series
http://grindthieves.com/tykal/mixes/jungle_2008-2012/
and “Big Bad Clap” tune mentioned above:
http://grindthieves.com/tykal/rips/Mindlab-Big_Bad_Clap.mp3.
neat~!!!