Mixmag Vol. 2 Issue 38

Vol. 2 Issue No. 38 July 1994 UK £1.95 USA $4.9 mixmag The World's Leading Dance Music & Club Culture Magazine ARMY RAVERS DRUGS IN THE FORCES the prodigy guitar heroes now? sexy fashion guest list groupies cool jungle style definitive IBIZA guide live! the orb/galliano/k-klass Jungle! Jack Frost, General Levy, Rebel MC, DJ Ron + more

Across from left General Levy, Jumpin' Jack Frost, Rebel MC and (front and centre) DJ Ron

summer of jungle Toytown tunes and rip-off raves, white gloves and iffy drugs? Forget about it. Jungle has got class, melody and rhythm and it's bursting back out of the underground armed with a whole new style: ragga, soul, Detroit, ambient. Shout it out. This is the Summer Of Jungle. Deep In A Dubwise Style: Tony Marcus Jungle Massive Official Photographer: Alexis Maryon Jumping Jack Frost: "We were on our own..." DJ Ron: "In the jungle..." Rebel MC: "In the wilderness." Jumping Jack Frost: "As far as the magazines and record companies were concerned, we didn't even exist. We were on our own. So what did we do?" Rebel MC: "We built our own foundation from the street." BANK Holiday Sunday at the Roller Express in deepest North London and Jungle Splash is on fire. "Deep in a dubwise style," announces MC Navigator while DJ Ron spins pure sub-bass: a slow-motion skank that seizes your spine before metallic breaks flash. He starts to play games, winding back the dub plates to that point just before the kickdrum while Navigator teases the crowd, promising the imminent arrival of rhythm. And there's not a whistle, white glove or bare-chested lad in sight. Instead you feel like you've walked into a Shabba Ranks video as scantily clad ragga babes, tracksuited dreads and designer label types lock into the slow burn of the bass and gently step at an even 80bpm. And it's not even a drug thing as they close their eyes and simply wait for Ron to let the Technics run and shift the sounds through jungle's spectrum of rare groove, ragga and soul before sinking into fathomless caverns of dub. For a few hours that Sunday night Jungle Splash looked and sounded like the best party in London. In many ways it was just the flowering of an underground scene that's finally outgrown toytown tunes, rip-off raves and hardcore drug abuse. Instead jungle has re-connected with the futuristic techno of Detroit and more importantly with the inner city sounds of ragga and hip hop to create a new soundtrack for 90s Britain. Already records like M-Beats' 'Incredible' featuring UK ragga star General Levy or Rebel MC and DJ Ron's jungle remake of reggae legend Junior Reid's 'Banana Boatman' are widely tipped to prefigure a Summer of jungle. And as each week goes by labels like the Rebel's X Project or long-running concerns like Suburban Base, Renk and Ibiza continue to release dance records with such immediacy, energy and artistry that some sort of massive crossover into the charts and beyond to Europe, Jamaica and America is looking inevitable. "WHAT happens now," prophecies Rebel MC, "is that jungle takes over as the music of a new generation. It's going to take over all the land, all territory and it came out of London." Put the needle where the mouth is and have a listen to his latest release on X Project X: Conquering Lion's 'Code Red'. The intro is a deft spinback that launches a sampledelic soundclash of gunshots, sirens, rudeboy MCs, spiritual dub and spot-on toasting from Supercat. Riding a shifting plane of drum n' bass, breaking down for dancehall, hardcore and dub rhythms, 'Code Red' joins the dots between London and Jamaica so smoothly it doesn't even sound like a breakbeat tune. Instead you're reminded of Steinski, DJ Shadow, Massive Attack, Soul II Soul, NWA and the whole fantastic history of attempts to make future sounds from the best bits of your record collection, street beats and the latest technology. "It's not just a reggae thing," insists Jumping Jack Frost. "I don't want people to think this is pure reggae. Reggae is just one influence. We built our scene on all the things we were brought up with - whether that's reggae, funk or jazz. There is a whole spectrum of music we're dealing with." Or as South London DJ Clarkee, a dub plate specialist who's been dealing with jungle since time, put it some weeks ago, standing in a South Jungle with style at X Project Launch Party at The Astoria, London. Photo: Martin Klejnowski 33 mixmag

Jungle is massive Rebel MC: "What happens now is that jungle takes over as the music of a new generation. It's going to take over all the land, all territory and it came out of London." London pub. "This is the Summer of jungle. It's going to be massive. You watch." GATHERED together in a South London photo studio Rebel MC, DJ Ron and Jumping Jack Frost are discussing the scene that could easily elevate them to positions of power within the international music industry. Firstly, as Frost suggests, this isn't just a reggae thing. Check out a good jungle jam and you'll hear rare groove licks, seductive soul vocals, jazzual sax, ambient electronics and Detroit's Blade Runner style technoir worked into tracks, often alongside dancehall and dub sounds. "If you check the producers of jungle tunes and you check their musical history," suggests DJ Ron, "that will effect their music. That's why jungle is so versatile. That's why you hear soulified jungle tunes where a man's soul man but still a junglist. Whereas my tunes are always gonna be ragga influenced because I come from ragga and roots reggae." Rewind to the beginning of the decade and just as The Orb tinkered with ambient dub and Jimmy Cauty [of KLF fame] and Tony Thorpe collaborated to experiment with ragga house (check their Moody Boys 'Journey Into Dubland' EP), so ragga-influenced hardcore appeared on a flow of white labels and from established labels like Production House, Ibiza, Suburban Base and, essentially, Shut Up & Dance. Even as they denounced the term 'jungle' as racist, SUAD's PJ & Smiley worked with the Ragga Twins and Junior Reid to create tracks like 'Shine Eye', 'Hooligan 69', 'Spliffhead' and the instrumental '18 Speaker' - which more than anything else prefigures the current junglist sound. Respect for PJ & Smiley's work is still so strong that the Ragga Twins LP 'Reggae Owes Me Money' is now reckoned to be worth around £18. To put this into perspective an original copy of Frankie Knuckles' 'Tears' is currently going for £15 whilst Aphex Twin's ultra-rare remix of Curve is rated at just £12. IT'S as simple as this," replies DJ Ron to questions about history. "What was getting played in the rave scene was acid. As more and more people started going to raves, in a nutshell more black people, the first thing you started hearing was breakbeats being played more frequently. Before long it was just breakbeats and then you started to hear ragga samples." "It's obvious," interjects Rebel, "people add their own influence, put in something for themselves." And of course for all those still blissed on The Beloved, dreaming 3am Eternal and saving up the airfare to Goa, the last thing they wanted to hear were the inner city b-lines, harsh hip hop breaks, gunshots and rudeboy vocals that appeared on so many early jungle tracks. "When I first started out people would say I was the devil," recalls Jumping Jack Frost, "and now I'm seeing those same people out in the place." For Frost, Ron and many others jungle, hardcore, drum n' bass, breakbeat or whatever you want to call it, is a natural evolution from those first Summers of acid house. It was acid's message of unity that tore down class and race barriers and created a marketplace for a new wave of ideas, labels and producers. "No one in the world could do what we're doing," declares Frost. "I went to the States in January. Where I was staying I couldn't know you." He fixes me with a steady, unblinking gaze: as if to say, this is from a black man to a white man. "In America there is no way we could ever be talking. And without you and me knowing each other and getting our heads together in a cosmopolitan way this music can't work. And they can't do it over there. This is our thing and we're gonna build it." Or see it used, abused, sold-out and spat-out? The memories of 'Sesame's Treet', 'A Trip To Trumpton' and a thousand forgotten rotten records hang over jungle like a side threat. "Breakbeat music sold out in a big way," recalls Rebel, "it was a joke. Certain tunes were getting bigger that were never played in hardcore raves." Spot on. Tunes emerged that could only live on daytime Radio One, end of term discos and Top Of The Pops. So no TV appearances this time then? "You can go on Top Of The Pops," says Rebel, "but you've got to be doing something constructive. Don't forget that rave music was something that was good and it got taken til it was so commercial it was ridiculous." And is jungle secure from this sort of exploitation? "Now we're going to see the cash-in," snarls Rebel, "the music industry has discovered jungle three years too late and now we're gonna see jungle mixes, jungle this and jungle that and at the end of the day I just want jungle to stay pure." PURE or otherwise, jungle is growing and major labels like Island and RCA have tried (and failed) to sign junglist act M-Beat. Hardcore labels are now inundated with mailing list requests from DJs who've returned to the breakbeats and major labels seeking jungle remixes. Even technoheads like Orbital have recorded a jungle track for their new LP whilst Somerset's techno experimentalists Reload have released a jungle EP under a pseudonym and Bandulu are also reported to be moving in this direction. Industry gossip suggests that Chakademus & Pliers are working on some jungle material while Channel 4's new music show, The White Room, has filmed an episode on reggae that puts M-Beat and General Levy on the same programme as Sly & Robbie, Jimmy Cliff and Toots & The Maytals. Finally a few weeks ago, in Harlseden, North West London, no less a figure than Shabba Ranks was apparently spotted dancing, in fact 'jumping up and down' according to our eyewitness, to the jungle tunes played by the Miami Groove sound system. And it's this collision between ragga and jungle that sets hearts racing and sells boxes of junglist tunes from specialist reggae shops that would never touch a 'rave' tune. Already ragga vocalists like Tenor Fly and Topcat have jungle tunes ready to go on X Project. More importantly England's leading ragga figure, General Levy - in a moment as historic as the moment Bob Dylan gave up his acoustic for an electric guitar - performed his jungle tune, 'Incredible' at last month's British Reggae Awards in London. "JUNGLIST massive, hear this," declares Levy on 'Incredible' as he launches into a staggeringly fast burst of rhyme interspersed with his trademark 'hiccup' sound. M-Beat back him with a raw set of scratches, breaks and low-fi grooves. "I think that basically it's all street music," says Levy. "I get my vibes off the street, I pick up what's going on in the street and I've been aware of jungle music for a long time. And they've been sampling my voice for a little while but this music is getting good vibes from the street and is accepted by most of the ragga fraternity. And most of the men who make jungle and go to jungle raves are in the same kind of surroundings as us. It's like a natural step really, we've all come from the same set of vibes." Levy's tune 'Incredible' is a collaboration with Renk Records act M-Beat who are quickly following it with an ecstatically received jungle re- Jumping Jack Frost: "When I first started out people would say I was the devil, and now I'm seeing those same people out in the place." 34 mixmag

Tenor Fly (right) and his cohort outside The Astoria, London. Photo: Martin Klejnowski make of Anita Baker's 'Sweet Love'. It's no surprise to discover that major labels and serious suits have been chasing M-Beat. But with no luck. "We're independent and I mean independent," says Renk boss Junior Hart. Instead of signing up to The Man, Hart, M-Beat and the Renk roster are gearing themselves up for something big of their own. "Around September jungle's going to explode in a big way," predicts Hart. "We're busy recording in the studios every night and getting our release schedule together. Once that starts to flow..." We might not have to wait that long. The Rebel and DJ Ron's version of Junior Reid's 'Banana Boatman' is currently circulating on dubplate and it's a killer. Junior's got the voice of a reggae angel and when he sings about something meaningful the emotions fly like sparks. The lyrics, explains Junior, deal with racism. "When Caribbeans go to England and America people say you must come on a banana boat as if you're an illegal immigrant. So I just sing, 'Don't call me no Banana Boatman.'" An instant reggae anthem when first released on Junior's 'Progress' LP at the beginning of the decade, '...Boatman's emotional power is actually intensified by X Project's spare, dubwise and metallic breakbeat treatment. "Music doesn't have any barriers," says Reid, "Junior is an original reggae singer, but if they need me in the other areas and I can blend in and nice-up the vibe and clean up the vibe, I go there." And where Junior, General, Topcat and Supercat go, the reggae and dancehall crowd follow. "WE'VE been sending jungle tracks to regular reggae shops," confirms Lloyd Morris from leading ragga, soul and dub distributor Jet Star, "and they can't stop phoning back for more." Armed with a posse of in-house producers Morris is cutting jungle remixes of the latest tunes as they arrive from Jamaica. The first release, a jungled up version of Buju Banton's 'Champion' is already picking up interest even though it's a pretty lame remix. "Jungle is the lick this summer," says Morris, "and if an artist doesn't bring out a jungle mix they consider one coming if their track is of any calibre." In other words jungle is an irresistible force right now and reggae artists may as well get remixed before they get sampled and bootlegged. "I think it will be a very big trend this year," continues Morris, hinting that we might expect jungle remixes of Mega Banton and Papa Levi tracks, "and by next year it will be getting even better and spreading. I can see the day when 7" pre-release jungle singles start coming in from Jamaica." The 7" pre-release is a kind of test pressing used by all the big reggae tracks. Already there are reports that a couple of Jamaican sound systems have started to play jungle. God only knows what the trendies who tried to pretend jungle didn't exist will do when the stuff starts rolling in from the terminally hip studios in Kingston. A return to style-mag credibility is the last thing that Suburban Base's Danny Donnelly would like to see. For the last two years he's been one of the few who stayed with hardcore and actually made an effort to keep it alive. Recent releases on his label from Heart Of Noise, Kings Of The Jungle and on his limited edition 10" 'Sub Plates' series has meshed ambience, reggae and innovation into drum n' bass with a creativity that rivals the likes of Mo' Wax. "The good thing about rave being unfashionable," reckons Donnelly, "is that it got rid of all the people who were totally insincere. It swept a broom through it all and just left the people who really wanted to work at it. Hardcore as a sound is much better for it." Amongst those left in the wilderness, alongside underground DJs like LTJ Bukem, Randall, Clarkee and Peshay living a life beyond fashion, were London's Ibiza Records. Keeping the faith unceasingly since 1989 they now reckon they've released over 300 hardcore tunes. And like many people in the scene they've watched the music mutate from a drug-obsessed mess into something more mature, street-wise and subtle. "It only went fast because of the drugs," says Ibiza's Chris Simon. "The music was getting faster because the drugs were getting faster. They pushed the tempo further to see how high they could take the music." And things got out of hand. Not only artistically but even in the shops themselves. For years there have been standing jokes about the state of kids in shops like the hardcore basement of London's Black Market Records and shops like Ibiza itself. Outside either of these shops on a Saturday afternoon in 1992 and '93 you'd find a handful of red-faced, sweaty teenagers grinning desperately at each other and chain smoking cigarettes. "If any of them kids came in here now and was out of their faces I'd take them down to the hospital," promises Simon, "and sort them out. We're not here to purvey drugs, we're here to purvey music." But the kids have changed as well. Go down to Black Market this Saturday and you'll find a hardcore basement that feels and sounds like a chill-out space. The sound system lets 160bpm breaks roll but the new productions from Suburban Base, X Project or Reinforced have a stark, empty purity that's anything but hard. Instead of chewing or sweating the punters gently nod and grin at each other. "The street kids prefer the drum n' bass," says Ibiza's Paul Chamber, "they're not doing E's like before. They want something more musical. It's like a wake-up." IF it is a wake-up then it's a kind of hempen, floaty, red-eyed sort of dawning. Check the latest Ibiza releases and a track like 'Time' from Mark X's 'Exidus' EP. A cool soundclash of reverse garage samples, gangster movie excerpts, intricate breaks, dubwise and harmonic drones it's as wickedly spliffed out as trip hop. And 'Time' suggests that if there's one dumb secret at the heart of a good jungle tune it's this: although the breaks run at 160bpm the bass, vocals and chords groove at a steady 80 beats per minute. The breakbeats function as percussives with just an off-beat, deep kickdrum to hint at submerged dub patterns. It's just one of innumerable jungle tunes that just trip the gentlest ambient over the cleverest web of breakbeats. "You're hearing a step," confirms Simon, "a beat you can groove to and you can dance with your girl to it as well." Sweet. Jungle as a soundtrack for love, romance and seduction. Or how about jungle as inner city blues, red-eyed grooves and sensual shag music? Or jungle as the force that brings together all underground street musics, uniting rare groove, reggae, soul, ragga, pure techno and ambience under one shiny ball of silken snares and silvery hi-hats? "We're in a new era," declares Jumping Jack Frost with one eye on the excesses of the past and another on a sparkling new future, "it's time to start again. It's another chapter. Let's turn the page. Let's go again." Everybody in the place? Let's go. Roll on the Summer of jungle. DJ Ron Ten Classic Jungle Labels/Ten Classic Jungle Tracks Bodysnatch - 'Just For You London' (Big City) Conquering Lion - 'Code Red' (X Project) Dizzy - 'Love For The World' (Kemet) Leviticus - 'The Burial' (Philly Blunts) Potential Bad Boy - '4 For The Ladies' (Ibiza) Deep Blue - 'Helicopter Tune' (Movin' Shadow) Various - 'Internal Affairs' EP (Reinforced) Ronnie Size - 'Music Box' (Full Circle) M-Beat - 'No Surrender' (Renk) Kings Of The Jungle - 'Loveable' (Kings Of The Jungle) Ibiza Records' Paul Chamber: "The street kids prefer the drum n' bass, they're not doing E's like before. They want something more musical. It's like a wake-up." 36 mixmag