“There weren’t many labels putting out this kind of style,” he continues, “until I met Simon who runs 7th Storey Projects, who seemed keener than most on the tracks I’d been doing in this style. After I had two tracks on his label, he wanted an EP from me, and I decided I’d get Dwarde involved as he’s on the same tip as me, with the taste in ‘92-‘93 and onwards.” The fusion of jungle and techno that Tim Reaper has recently explored is getting others hyped too. Próximo is a club event in London at the Victoria pub in Dalston, run by Luke Hansbury. Its aim is to unite disparate club crowds by putting techno and jungle DJs on the same bill, plus selectors who straddle the genre divide. At previous parties, Dead Man’s Chest has shared the bill with Whities fusionist Minor Science, while Forest Drive West, who has made electro and techno as well as new school jungle for Rupture LDN, shared the bill with breakbeat fiend West Norwood Cassette Library at the launch. “I wanted to bring something different and fresh to London’s clubbing landscape,” says Hansbury. “I’ve always been a big fan of nights where you hear a wide variety of styles all mashed up on one dancefloor; it allows people to get a window on sounds and scenes they might not have been involved in before. At our last party we had proper junglists hearing Basic Channel and acid house alongside dyed-in-the-wool techno fans shocking out to Amens, it was so great to see different scenes converge.”

One reason jungle has begun to explode again is the new openness to those who put their own spin on the genre. Norwich DJ/producer Sully – real name Jack Stevens – has been one of the UK’s most important artists in bass music over the last decade, creating mutated dubstep and garage on labels such as Keysound, Astrophonica and Black Acre. More recently, he’s been experimenting with jungle, adding elements not typically associated with the genre. On ‘X Plus Y’ from his 2017 Keysound album ‘Escape’, drum fragments form an integral part of the harmony, sliding up and down the scale to complement the melodic blips and dub FX. Beyond the time-stretched beats of original jungle, Sully takes classic features and rearranges them in a way that would only be possible with modern technology. Similarly, ‘Vanta’ from the same record arranges micro-spliced breaks around eerie synth and sound design you’d more readily associate with experimental sound art. “I work a lot with synths and I like to paint moods rather than just pure bass and attack on the drums,” Sully says. “That’s probably my main way of approaching it, treating drums as a melodic instrument as well. Using the snare drum to create melodies. It’s not something other people do quite so much, I don’t think. Pitching the drum hits, using phasing to make them sound like they’re notes, really getting into the detail of each hit so you can eke something more out of it than you would do with a normal drum-kit.” When he began making jungle, Sully was unsure how his unorthodox tracks would be perceived. “I think my early releases were an unusual take and I expected a few people to kick back against it, but it’s not been the case at all. As long as you do something with passion and it’s not tokenistic, not a hackneyed parody of the sound, people will appreciate that.”

“There’s been a fresh reappraisal of the incredible music that was made back in the ’90s, and how amazingly upfront and intense it can be. There are a whole host of producers and DJs who are really taking that energy, that technicality in the production, and pushing it to the next level” – Luke Hansbury

Less conventional, more abstract new forms of jungle are beginning to proliferate. Dead Man’s Chest talks about some of the material he’s been sent for consideration for his Western Lore imprint. “I got stuff through from Response, who’s started sending me these slower experimental things, and I’ve got these 10-15 minute tracks from him. Threshold is another artist — when you talk about sound design, this guy is the master of it. He’s taken that artiness to science levels.” Today’s jungle scene encompasses the genre fusions of artists such as Fracture or Om Unit, who mix footwork into their breakbeat concoctions, or Pessimist, who injects an oppressive Berlin techno aura into his musical chimeras. It’s welcoming to those who make other styles — the only requirement is that the jungle they produce is authentic. “There are no rules,” says Double O. “You can mix and blend all different genres into it. If you know what you’re doing, you can still make it sound like jungle.” “Producers are influenced by all sorts,” Mantra adds. “Sully’s album had loads of grime/140 tracks, Forest Drive West makes amazing techno with Livity Sound and you can hear their influences within the d&b they’re currently making. That’s what keeps it fresh — producers taking inspiration from wherever they find it. That’s what makes their sound unique.”

Rings Around Saturn (from Melbourne, Australia) and DJ Seinfeld (Swedish but based in Barcelona, Spain) have been creating jungle under other monikers, and there is a sense that this new jungle movement is global. One of its most prominent artists is Coco Bryce, whose refreshing and real sound comes from a surprising source: Breda in the Netherlands, more typically associated with chart-topping trance DJs. He’s taken inspiration from the DIY lo-fi movement and put his own spin on it. Meanwhile, Enjoy, whose killer ‘Just A Vibe’ release was out last year on AKO Beatz, is based in Udine, Italy. The online jungle community has helped foster the revivified movement, and geography no longer presents a problem in our age of connectivity. “In terms of promoting and networking,” says Double O, “everyone is so easily accessible, so we feed off each other and keep the inspiration levels high.” Facebook group Long Live Beautifully Crafted Jungle is just one agent of dissemination, which acts as a forum for original heads and a place where younger fans can discover classic and newer material. “It reminds people who were there at the time that there’s still an appreciation and a curiosity for the old school style, as well as providing a portal into an older sound for people who were not there at the time,” says Tim Reaper. For Manchester DJ/producer Djinn (Hannah Garvey), who co-runs the Formless club-night and has released a succession of lethal jungle cuts through Subdepth and Foundation X, jungle offered something deeper and more engrossing than what she used to play. “I started playing breaks first,” she says, “but something drew me to jungle. I find it works on a different level. It’s thought-provoking and emotive. I really like the Amen break. It just sounds bad. Also, that whole 808 bass jungle sound, and cinematic elements, influenced by Photek and Source Direct — that sci-fi sound effect-type vibe.”

“As long as you do something with passion and it’s not tokenistic, not a hackneyed parody of the sound, people will appreciate that” – Sully

Her tracks such as ‘Dark Reference’ match an ominous dubwise feeling with splintered breaks, while ghostly samples of jungle’s past — such as ‘Mentasm’ hoover sounds — lurk in the gloom. When her Formless night started in 2015, there wasn’t much else going on in Manchester jungle-wise, but she’s noticed that starting to change. “That’s the reason that night came about, because there was not really a lot of that sound here,” she says. “There was a lot of dubstep on, that I liked, but not much really in the way of drum & bass. But I think a lot of people must feel that as well, because they seem to be really getting it and thinking it’s a good thing for the area.” The popularity of any established genre tends to wax and wane, and just now, as the ‘90s become ripe for discovery for young listeners (helped along by YouTube, Discogs and Spotify), and as older music obsessives assess the treasures of the recent past, it’s jungle’s turn.“

I think there’s been a fresh reappraisal of the incredible music that was made back in the ’90s, and how amazingly upfront and intense it can be,” Luke Hansbury says. “There are a whole host of producers and DJs who are really taking that energy, that technicality in the production, and pushing it to the next level.” All the people that DJ Mag talks to for this feature agree that the rhythmic complexity and extreme possibilities afforded by jungle make it appealing. Breakbeat music in all forms is becoming ever more viable for those bored of straight house and techno four-fours, and jungle is its most expressive variant. “For me it was about the energy and rawness that jungle had which no other sound could match,” Tim Reaper says. “The layering and chopping of the breakbeats, the really hard-hitting 808 and Reese basslines paired up with the chaotic sampling of any and every other kind of genre was just the perfect formula, a real melting pot of sounds and styles that formed an amazing and unique combination.”

“I really like the Amen break. It just sounds bad. Also that whole 808 bass jungle sound, and cinematic elements, influenced by Photek and Source Direct — that sci-fi sound effect-type vibe” – Djinn

Dead Man’s Chest first encountered jungle through cassette tape-pack mixes, and its grittiness when experienced through that medium has haunted him ever since. “The way I consumed it via mixtapes, it wasn’t about one tune, I didn’t know where one tune started and the next one ended, it was this huge collage of different sounds thrown together,” he says. “The way it sounded wasn’t just from a producer’s desk, it was out of a set of turntables recorded at a gig on a DAT, then recorded to tape, and after I got the tape, there was this distance. That was part of the make-up of the music for me.” He reckons that the music’s sense of space and uncluttered sound stage allows far more room for experimentation than other forms of d&b. “In drum & bass everybody started layering stuff, and you’re kind of getting the impact out of the drums. With jungle there was less emphasis on that, the drums sounded more natural. They left more space for the subs and for the music to be wrapped around. For me personally, it’s slowing down to that tempo and then having more space around the drums, having them set back and not punch you in the face. It does open up a lot of space musically, and I’ve found arrangements and being more experimental with the music a lot easier in that setting.” Jungle was first created in multi-ethnic London. It was a product of black British soundsystem culture, drawing influence from Jamaican musical styles such as dub, roots reggae and dancehall, but also American hip-hop in its breakbeats and sampling, early European rave (Belgian new beat particularly), and the UK acid house scene that shifted into hardcore. Made and played by a mix of races and cultures, it quickly spread from its London base to Essex, Hertfordshire, Bristol, Manchester and beyond, morphing quickly through ragga jungle (with a strong dancehall influence in its MCs) through versions inspired by techno, ambient and jazz.

The hugely influential 1995 ‘Pulp Fiction’ track by Alex Reece (a classic, though vilified by some for shifting the beat structure of the genre) nullified the polyrhythmic roll of jungle, at least temporarily, making the d&b beat a regimented two-step boom-clack. Nevertheless, the looser groove of jungle has continued to crop up, with tunes such as Danny Byrd’s ‘Shock Out’, Breakage’s ‘Clarendon’ and High Contrast’s ‘Ghost Of Jungle Past’ just a tiny fraction of the many jungle tunes released in the intervening years before the current revival. It feels particularly pertinent that now, at a time when musical tribalism is less pervasive than ever and listeners can pick and mix from any styles of music they want thanks to its online accessibility, jungle has returned. It’s the ultimate mixture of genres, a musical Esperanto that transcends borders. “The one thing I can say is different about the ‘old school’ stuff made now is that rather than producers coming from the angle of ‘I want to do just ragga stuff’ or ‘I want to do atmospheric/deeper bits’, everyone’s doing a bit of every kind of style, which means there’s quite a bit of range to play around with,” Tim Reaper says. “Nobody’s really focusing on just one kind of style, people have seen the avenues that were formed back in the day and are dabbling in bits of everything, which I think helps to keep things exciting.” Jungle, though occasionally peppered with funk, reggae and euphoric rave samples, tends to be moody and dark. By contrast with more uplifting styles of d&b such as liquid or (some) jump-up, it’s a heads-down sound that revels in hypnotic or sometimes fearful vibes. That it should be back at the fore when America is run by a bigoted businessman and political uncertainty reigns across the globe, propagated by duplicitous governments through social media, makes a certain kind of sense, reckons Dead Man’s Chest. “The way the world is, and our perception of it now, is incredibly chaotic,” he says.

“Is it a movement? For sure. We are all united and working together to push the sound we love further” – Mantra