Imagine yourself in 1994. The whole jungle thing is kicking off big time, and you love it, but you happen to have this other side—maybe it's an artsy-fartsy ambient "let's smoke a bowl and talk about the universe" side, or perhaps it's a getting-in-touch-with-your-black-roots wannabe-jazz-musician "one of these days I'm gonna learn to play vibes just like Roy Ayers" side, or maybe you're just one of those pretentious types who thinks ragga is for dummies and this whole jungle thing would be a delight if only there were some intellectuals like you to make it inscrutable to the unwashed masses.
Back in the day all three of those somewhat unseemly forces united and churned out a sound referred to as "ambient jungle", "atmospheric jungle", "jazz jungle", "intelligent drum & bass", "artcore", and a few dozen other names that the press tried to push out there but that never really stuck.
This stuff was adored by the critics back in the day (I remember reviews from the jungle section in Urb saying "thank goodness this new Reinforced comp doesn't have any stinking AMENS in it"), but it's been pretty much forgotten today. I chalk it up to a combination of jungle's declining relevance in the current musical climate, the fact that the jungle tunes remembered as classics tend to be the dancefloor-smashing ragga anthems, and the reality that today's crop of jungle kids came up on said ragga anthems and don't actually know much about original jungle beyond those big tracks. On the rare occasions when people do bring up this genre, it's usually to malign it (my pal and sometimes collaborator DJ C hates the stuff, for instance).
Make no mistake, a bunch of ambient jungle was fucking awful. It sounds like an advertisement for body lotion that you might see on Lifetime, or like the music they play in Pottery Barn. But then again, a lot of it was really good, and due to prevailing tastes in jungle at large, I never ever get a chance to play this stuff. So here goes.
2 Weeks:
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