It's funny how music goes round full cycle when you follow the history of Jungle music from the very early hardcore days of 1991-1992 when Acid house started to mutate into bigger basslines, Bashy reggae sample's and cut up breakbeats and through the years the tempo got faster and faster.
During the later years the scene split into other genres and terms like Tech step, Liquid,Happy ardcore, Drum and bass popped up but the foundation "Jungle" was always still there.
I remember watching an interview with Rebel Mc (Congo natty) and he said "Im a raver, an original raver and im a yout of the bassline, it was all about the B-line and if it didnt then i couldnt feel the tune".
This sum's it up with where im going with the King Yoof sound and Jungle music in all it's different forms has now joined as one unified scene... Jungle Unity!
I look back to the tunes that really got me interested in the jungle sound from such classics as A Guy called Gerald's "28 gun bad boy" to The Criminal Minds "Baptised in Dub" and of course Rebel Mc's "Tribal bass".
A Guy called gerald
The Criminal minds
Rebel Mc
These producers understood the power of reggae music, Dj's like Slipmatt, Micky Finn, Dj Hype who would all be playing massive Raves s and clubs such as Raindance, Labyrinth, Jungle fever all had a love of reggae music and this would soon become apparent in there productions and dj sets sampling classic reggae and dancehall records, re creating the basslines and cutting up breakbeats to give it its own unique sound.... Jungle music was born
As i said earlier the music would mutate, tempos got faster, production got alot more better with a new breed of producers such as Shy Fx, Remarc, Dillinja, Dj Ron etc and by 93-95 Jungle music had properly taken over the U.K. from the radio stations to the raves and music was now becoming a revolution.
When the press and media start scare mongering about a certain movement and you only have to look back to the days of punk then you know the scene is massive.
Shy Fx
Remarc
Dj Ron
Dillinja
Now its 2012 and the Jungle sound is back in many different forms from the 140 bpm styles of Dubstep with producers such as King Dubbist, Jacky Murda & Itchy Robot + the future jungle sound (hate saying that word LOL) that artists like myself, Gold, Vinyl Junkie, Sanxion,Warrior One, Rack n Ruin, Shy Fx etc are pushing by bringing back that original formula right through to the 175 bpm realms of artists such as Congo natty, Aries, Bladerunner, Lionfire, Serial killaz, Liondub.
This sound is gaining so much support from legendary Dj's such as David Rodigan and Don Letts to taste maker's such as Toddla T , Uncle Dugs and Billy Bunter.
Here are some video's of the artist's i have mentioned
Itchy & Jacky
King Dubbist
Gold
Warrior one
King Yoof
Rack n Ruin
Aries
LionFire
Serial Killaz
Bladerunner
Congo natty
It's a very exciting time at the moment especially when i talk to other Dj's in other scenes who are part of the Jungle Unity and nothing but love is shown and i also feel that people are crying out for some real substance to be heard in the clubs again, i wont harp on about it but to much microwave music is polluting people ears, lets give the people what they want and also something that has some soul and a conscious message. When ever i listen to other people moan about the state of dance music they always 9 times out of 10 say "i wish it was the good old days of jungle"... i think that sums it up.
Just thought id let you know that ive just started a brand new radio show alongside Sub slayer's head honcho Jay Cunning on the legendary Kool London every Friday 5-7 pm gmt
Both of us have a long history of radio from the good old days of the multi award winning Breaks Fm which paved the way for many artist and also Jay's weekly Kiss Fm show.
Both of us are very honored to of been asked to join the Kool London team as this was the station we grew up on and also to be part of the Jungle movement.
If you dont know about Kool's history then you must of been living in the dark age's...
Kool's the longest running multi award winning Jungle/ Drum & Bass/ Hardcore radio station spanning over 20 years with a deep foundation in the early Jungle movement.
The first thing that pops into any junglist's head's when radio is mentioned is "Kool!!!"
Heres a video documenting on the early days of Kool and the early Jungle Movement.
part 1
part 2
part 3
Here is our first Sub Slayer's show in case you missed it.... load's of exclusive's, Jokes and usual pirate banter!!!
2012 is looking already to be a positive and busy year for me, Last year was an excellent year having released my King Yoof’s international Hi-Fi E.P. on Jay Cunning’s Sub slayer’s label which fused all my favourite sounds into one massive cooking pot from Reggae/Jungle + Dubstep.
I didn’t think it would connect as well or sell as well as I thought it would do as it was a very new sound (very different from the music I had made before under my Sonz of mecha guise) but was blown away by the amount of response and support it gained, Was even more blown away by the sales statements especially in these economically challenging times and to find out you had the biggest release on that label. So all gravy baby!!!!
GIVE ME A DUBPLATE AND LET ME MASH DEM DOWN!
(KING YOOF'S WARRIOR SOUND E.P OUT SOON ON SUB SLAYERS)
Fuck me 2012 is already here and I haven’t stopped in the studio applying finishing touches to my next release (Warrior) for Sub Slayer’s which feature’s vocals from Jah Mirikle.
I discovered Jah Mirikle when i had found a video that was doing the rounds on facebook which featured Rodney P,Heartless crew and Jah. His vocals blew me away and so i got him to do a full vocal performance on my latest release. The tune hails back to the golden age of reggae but brought up to date with Jah Mirikle blessing us with his sweet positive vocals.
Heres the video to his collaboration with Rodney P and Heartless crew
I was thinking at first of it being just a single but now ive decided it to be an E.P. as I have remixes from Alex Gold, dubstep’s new kids on the block Hellfire Machina and also dance music legends Shut up and Dance.
The E.p. Will also feature my new dancefloor smash “Every night is a soundclash” which is on the same vibe as Back 2 Hackney or Murderer. Blap blap!
Already support from Jay Cunning, Pyramid, Gold, Shut up and Dance, Billy Bunter,Jacky Murda, Dreadzone, Aries.
I wanted to keep the original vibe of the track and make it more up to date, Already gaining support from Dj’s such as Billy Bunter, Jay Cunning, Pyramid, Vinyl Junkie, Uncle dugs, and various others… this will be a give away on the new Sub Slayers website.
Got a few Collabs under the belt already and have been busy in the studio with Vinyl Junkie, Dj Gold and Pyramid… more news on that in the next blog update.
THE INFORMATION CENTRE
An important website to add to your favourites is the new Sub Slayers website www.subslayers.com If you haven’t already checked it out then your missing out on so much goodness, Loads of exclusive free tunes including the massive remix Gold did of Major Laser’s “Pon di Ghetto floor”, Mixes and interviews with all the artists on the label such as myself, Jay Cunning, Gold, Sanxion, Rack n Ruin, High ranking, Gella, Schema, Twista… Sub Slayer’s is proving to be one of the leaders in pushing Bass music and not being pinned down to one style.
Also don’t forget you can buy Gold’s 4 corners E.P out now on Sub slayers and gaining massive support from Toddla T (Radio 1), Warrior one, Dj Ez, Jacky Murda + many more... Next release is from a new artist from Canada called “Toronto is broken” who is very young, very talented and someone your gonna be hearing a lot of in 2012
REGGAE, REGGAE AND MORE REGGAE AND I LOVE IT
Woke up New Years day to find out David Rodigan received a MBE from the Queen, which was a great excuse to carry on the new years celebrations!
I think it freaks people out especially fellow artists that my main love is Reggae music and when im at home its all you will pretty much hear.
My love of it has stemmed way back to when I was a youngster in the 80’s and fortunate enough to have been around Sound system culture growing up in Lewisham S.E. London home of sounds such as Saxon, going to Reggae Sun Splash at Crystal Palace seeing artists such as Dennis Brown, Sugar Minot, King Yellow man etc.
When you have been around the music and culture its hard not love it, even later on when I found other music such as early rave and Jungle that I was drawn by the reggae influences especially the baselines.
Here’s a true fact for you… Without Reggae and early sound system culture you would not have Hip-Hop or any forms of dance music. In fact no dance music period!
Selectors like Rodigan who started out with a small Record outlet in Lewisham have played a big influence in my life and when you see them receive awards such as the MBE it’s a proud moment for everyone that has loved Reggae music.
One of the things that got me making Reggae influenced music is the preservation of the sound and educating people especially the younger generation that all the music you listen to whether its Dubstep/Jungle/Drum and Bas etc comes from Sound system Culture…REGGAE MUSIC!
YOU KEEP PLAYING THAT BLOODY JUNGLE MUSIC ALL NIGHT!!!
It’s a beautiful thing hearing your tunes played all over the radio, just being in your car and switching your radio on and bopping to your latest tunes is a buzz even when you get to my age lol and it seems the Pirates are all over this new Jungle sound!
From Billy Bunters Kool fm Music Mondays show 12-3pm too Uncle Dugs run come Fridays lunch time show on Rinse fm + during the mid week you can catch Tamsin on Kool fm (Thursdays)+ Shut up and dance on Origin fm (Wednesday nights).
Big up all the Dj's/Pirate radios for supporting the sound.
Also stay tuned as Sub Slayers head cappo Jay Cunning and myself will be starting a brand new 2 hour radio show very soon... station details and times will be announced very soon.
JANUARY SALES OVER AT NICE UP!
The good people over at Nice up blog are doing a sale on the latest nice up t-shirts.. a wooping 25% off and only for this month!!!
Warehouse wax have just release a brand new E.p. from a brand new artist called Kieran M... if you like your ardcore jungle with that futuristic edge then this is for you, Big things from this 16 year old producer.... Yoof's fav track of the E.p is Soundclash
I know i have already reviewed Shy Fx featuring Yasmin and said its the best thing since sliced bread... well its finally out + the new version features Miss Dynamite
To top it off the video's not bad either, Big up Shy fx on bringing the true Jungle vibes back!
Last on my list of tunes that should be in your dub box is Hellfire Machina feat Infuze's "Good Love" out now on Lifted Music... sexy beats, thunderous basslines and epic strings, toped off with a killer vocal that takes you back to the good ol days of raving...
This tune is massive and all ready in the top 10 Beatport Dubstep chart with nearly 600,000 plays on youtube.
Wow Time has flown by this year and i havent written on my blog for a while now, been busy in the lab getting the new Yoof Riddims ready for next year + other various projects.
Major support from: Toddla T, Shut up and Dance, Dreadzone, Don Letts, Mr Benn, Pyramid, Jay Cunning, Billy bunter, Vinyl Junkie, Rennie pilgrem, dj Shep dog, Gold, Dj Raggs, Subscape.
October was a busy month promoting the King yoof international E.p. and one of the highlights was playing on Londons longest running pirate radio Kool fm. I have played on many legal stations such as Kiss fm and Radio 1 but when you get asked to play on the station that you grew up on since 1992 then thats a big ting!!!
The whole show was hilarious (Thanks Tamsin) and the phone line/chatroom went crazy for my new tunes with rewinds being asked for every tune i played lol, the studio went into meltdown BIG TIME! even the c.d decks gave up.
Anyway you can listen to the whole 2 hour show just by downloading the link... enjoy!
11.11.11 was a date i will never forget as it was my birthday weekend...
I had been asked to Dj alongside Jay Cunning and Mc Ken Mac for a Sub slayer's showcase at Epidemiks 16th birthday bash @ the o2 arena in the main room and the place went off!
Want to thank Grant @ Epidemik for putting on one of the best raves ive been to in a long time and for giving us the platform to showcase our sound unlike some promoters who just talk a good job... (promoters you know who you are. shame on you).
BASSFACE AWARDS 2011 GOES TO ME...
I THOUGHT I WOULD POST UP ALL THE TUNES I PUT OUT THIS YEAR TO RE CAP FOR THOSE WHO MIGHT HAVE MISSED OUT.
I thought id share some knowledge with some of you up and coming producers who have asked me to do tutorials on making some jungle breaks.
I’m not gonna do a you chuube video but ill go through it oldskool styleee and go through some of the basics on getting a decent beat going and how I chop my beats up + go through some of the processing.
Step 1. Finding your samples.
I come from the days of what is known as "Crate digging" a process of which I will go and find breaks and samples from random records, I would spend hours and hours + bucket loads of moneys buying old records from old record shops/ charity stores etc or if your name is Liam howlett then you have your own sample pimp LOL.
Today you can grab most decent breaks samples of the internet but be warned try and get the original source as the sound quality will be better or invest in a decent sample c.d. One of the best ones ive come across lately is Ray Keith’s sample pack on loop masters.
For years ive always used Recycle to chop my beats up, I still love it today as back in the day before recycle you had to do your chopping manually and this would take hours especially when you did it all inside a akai/emu sampler. (Serious eyestrain lol).
Always get your start point bang on and then start chopping, I use the sensitive bar to get my basic cut points but will go in and cut manually as you will find a better cutting point. Once you have cut your break up I make sure no clicks can be heard when playing back and will then import into my sampler and save the midi file and export that into my sequencer.
Step 3. Sequencer and Sampler.
I use Logic as my sequencer and the inbuilt sampler called the ex24 but the principles apply to most other setup's so don’t start worrying.
Once the midi file of the break is imported into your sequencer and your samples loaded in your sampler make sure the attack is set to 0 in your sampler, never forget years ago being in the studio with Rennie pilgrim and the attack on his sampler had a factory setting of 25 and so the samples would play back strangely late
SO ALWAYS CHECK!
Also a good tip is if you want to make the break sound tighter then shorten the decay and turn off the release.
Go into your midi file and you will see the midi notes of the break, make sure you quantize the break and then start messing about with the notes, this is what’s gonna personalize the break and make it your own.
Experiment and explore the different possibility’s of what you can make your break beat do. Good tip is loop up different points of the break and you will get some interesting variations.
Step 3. Separating the samples.
Once I have a 8 bar or 16 bar Loop sorted I then start separating the samples, Logic has a cool shortcut that lets you make copy’s of your Ex24 and so then I start separating the Snares, Kicks, Hats etc so this gives me more control over the individual sounds.
Step 4. E.Q.
I start to clean the samples up with the E.Q. taking out any rumble of the bottom end, ringing out any horrible frequency’s that might be present. I have learnt allot from being around engineers such as Dave Pemberton and not to take to much bottom out of the Loop, allot of producers take to much bottom out and the break sounds flat and thin, I still like to maintain the original sound and the phatness of the break.
Try not to add to much E.Q, as it’s better to take away than add but for things like Snares you want them to sound nice and crisp and so boosting 200-250 Hz usually helps.
Step 5. Layering
Once I have my break rolling I start to layer the break up, allot of oldskool breaks just don’t have the punch that’s required for today’s production but layering them up with good quality super phat individual hit's will give them the punch that it requires.
Layer the kick drum of the break with a programmed kick drum, cut the bottom out of the sample kick so the programmed kick sits nicely with it, remember have your kick drums in mono and not stereo.
Also a good tip is to tune your kick drums, im pretty anal about this and spend allot of time tuning drums, its a bit of an art form in itself and just takes experience and a good ear but can make a big difference, good example of this is the Hybrid boys when they make their beats.
You can apply the same principle with your snares, hats etc.
Step 5. Grouping
Now I have my break constructed I want to make it start to gel together and for this I group all the drums together by bussing of the channels to one group and setting the levels.
Step 6. Processing
I’m not gonna tell you the exact way of doing this as everyone has there own way of doing things but applying subtle compression and limiting can help make the break sound phat and also another way of making your breaks gel together.
Other interesting plug ins that can make your breaks sound good are transient designers and expanders.
Allot of people use the Psp vintage warmer but I find better results with the Wave's bundle's L2 Limiter, L3 Ultramaximiser and the Oxford E.q’s have a nice expander built in that just adds warmth.
A good tip as well is to add a subtle short reverb to the overall drum kit but go easy and be very subtle in applying this unless you want big phat dubstep drums lol.
Hope this helps when making your beats, like I said these are the basic principles to start with.
What with Jungle breaks gaining popularity with the dubstep/drum and bass/breaks massive i thought id go back in time mainly to educate people that might not of been around the first time to experience such a magical moment in u.k raving history.
Back in the early 90's Hardcore was splitting into two, you either had Happy hardcore that became more popular up north or you had Hardcore Jungle which was more for the London (south crew). Nights like Jungle fever, Roast club, Awol dominated the Jungle scene with the foundation laid by the Pirate radio station's such as Kool and Rush Fm.
The Jungle sound had heavy influences from Reggae and Dancehall, bringing that oldskool sound system culture to the raves.
One of the most historical moments was the Jungle Sound clash of 1994 featuring Devious D, Mickey Finn, Dj rap, Kenny ken who all battle out in a boxing ring with Mc's Moose & 5-0 as referee's.
The Audience get to judge the winners by making the most amount of noise.
Devious "rudebwoy" Dee aka The Raging bull.
Mickey "Pussyclart" Finn.
This month im only going to review one artist just purely because of who it is, how bloody good the tune is and how important role this artist has played when it comes to british underground dance music.
Back in the early 90's when Hardcore rave music ruled the country another sound started to mutate out of it from the ghetto's of London such as hackney, This sound had started to move away from the Happy techno sound but more towards the reggae/dancehall sound's of reggae... classic reggae basslines where being re worked, made bigger and more bashy, the beats got more sophisticated, vocal sample's from such great Dancehall dj's such as Ninjaman, Bounty killer, Beenie man, Cutty ranks etc where being sampled and re cut up..... Jungle music was born!
We have to go back to when the first wave of Jamaican people came to England bringing there sound of Reggae/Loversrock/Ska/Soul.
You coudnt hear this music on the radio and to be honest its very hard to here reggae on todays mainstream radio but thats another discussion in itself... so the people would build speaker boxes (sound systems) and throw underground parties which eventually through the years intergrated into british culture.
Without Reggae music and sound system culture you would not have dance music period!
Fast forward to around 1991 -92 and tunes like "Who's the badman" by dee patern, "28 gunman salute" by Guy called gerald and of course the godfathers of the scene Shut up and dance could be heard at every single rave.
While this was happening a very young Shy fx who started out as the teaboy/tape operator at SOUR records was messing about with beats and submitting them to the label without much success until he dropped a tune called "Gunsmoke" and then of course "Original nutter" which instead of sampling a well known dancehall artists he looked more closer to home and drafted in U.K. Apache on vocal duties and which to this day "original Nutter" can still be heard today.
Through the years Shy fx has lead the way, always setting the trend and never following!
He has made so many big big tunes that its hard to keep up with his output, his label Digital soundbwoy is probably my fav label at the moment just because of the diversity and quality of music he put's out!
So when Shy Fx starts making 140 Jungle breakbeats then you know things are big and boy has Shy hit the nail on the head with his new single due out this month on Ministry of sound called "Light up the world" feat vocal talents of Yasmin.
Tune starts with the classic film sample from the Harder they come and then bang a mixture of oldskool jungle beats, nuskool production, reggae basslines, soundclash samples and fx floods your head making any true Junglist feel like they have gone back to the golden age of clubs like AWOL, ROAST, JUNGLE FEVER etc
Yasmin's sweet vocals rides the tune in almost a Lovers rock style and complemented with the classic dancehall sample "Lighter!".
This tune will appeal to anyone and should be in every Dj's Box as like i said before when Shy fx is making this style then people need to wake up including Promoters, Dj's, label's.
This is what Jungle breaks is about, no disrespect to anyone but to be honest im hearing too many artists say they make Jungle breaks or Future Jungle (by the way that name sucks) and all they are making is not very good tearout which was done way back 2003 with labels like Mechanoise... So like i said when i heard "Light up the world" it restored my faith that the Jungle sound is here to stay and will make a big comeback in a different style.
