Continued....(Page 3).
Among the music creators, strongly stood the DJs such as LTJ Bukem , Fabio , Doc Scott , Grooverider , Photek and Dillinja , who had changed their direction towards a fresher sound and greater acoustic effects. At first, though, Drum & Bass remained along the same strands as jungle, which still makes people confuse both these days. It is easier to look as one being the continuation of the other, rather than worry which is which. As Drum & Bass slowly but steadily was heading its slightly different way, jungle kept rinsing out the underground culture.
1995 - Rolling tune is being invented. P-Funk's "P-Funk Era" is the tune to define the rolling future. Rude bwoy style overwhelmed the jungle scene: DJ Krust comes up with a deadly track 'Set Speed' along with 'Angels' - "When you can't see the angels no more, you're in trouble!"; Firefox rolls out 'Bonanza Kid' while Urban Shakedown brings "The Arsonist" with its ragga influenced vocals. Though rougher, the atmosphere remained similar to 1994.
1995 was also the year of commercialisation. Goldie had released 'Timeless', which sold 150,000 in UK, let alone worldwide sales. Goldie then concentrated on creating his own label called Metalheadz. Here the junglist DJ Dextrous reveals himself as J Majik . Goldie gathered the artists such as Doc Scott , Dillinja ,Photek , Peshay and Lemon D , to push drum & bass. 4 Heroreleases the remix of their legendary track "Mr Kirk's Nightmare". Towards the end of 1995, the jungle atmosphere started disappearing. It is generally thought, that the scene's decline was caused by the swing the leading artists made, in order to catch up with developing commercial mainstream. DJs generally wanted to take up their niches in the new commercial sphere, before it was too late. The concept of underground was somehow betrayed for money. Despite this changeover, jungle kept on going. At the beginning of 1996, clubs like AWOL and Roast were demised. Club DLB was one of the few left to keep feeding fuel into the jungle's fading fire.
1996 was also the year of drum 'n' bass style splitting . Grooverider 's term "Hardstep" gains mainstream acceptance, which was a further re-fusion of jungle and hip-hop (what was earlier called the roller tune). The "step" was a rougher, stronger beat, and had more in common with 4/4 rhythm than breakbeat. Most people think that No U Turn should be credited for Techstep, which is in fact wrong. It was an album released on Emotif records (A daughter label of the now closed S.O.U.R) in 1995 entitled "Techsteppin'" that defined both the term and the music. The No-U-Turn posses fiddled with the "Terrorist" bassline ( Ray Keith's 94 classic) to make it sound more acidic and analogue - the element that is most present in Drum & Bass today, and placed it over a tech-step 4/4 pumping technoid beat.
"Intelligent drum & bass" classified tracks, which had ambient/jazz licks on top. "Dark" or "Darkstep" drum & bass was pushed by Grooverider , where the name speaks for itself. "Experimental" drum & bass had never really caught up from the underground, and remained a sphere where drum & bass couldn't really be defined by any of the terms above, jungle was pushed to the back by drum & bass. Logical Progression takes it by storm nationwide, yet Good Lookingis nearly at a point of bankrupcy. Adam F comes up with the legendary track "Circles", "Valley of the Shadows" known to most people as "31 seconds" by Origin Unknown gets re-released on Ram and becomes one of the years jungle anthems. The 96/97 New Year parties were somewhat reminiscent of 94 and 95 new years' eves, but have nearly lost the jungle atmosphere.
1997 - Drum & bass DJs are booked for house oriented clubs; Ministry of Sound has drum & bass sessions. What's going on? Roni Size forms a Reprazent campus, where DJ Die , DJ Suv, Krust and Roni Size come together. Roni size releases a track entitled "Share The Fall", immediately followed by Grooverider's dark remix.
Different styles of drum & bass are heading in their own directions. Roni Size's "Brown Paper Bag" becomes an anthem immediately after its release. There are many newcomers to the scene such as Boymerang . LTJ Bukem has teamed up with Blame to present Logical Progression 2. Techstep seems to be the ultimate style of the year, with Jonny L resurfacing from the past, and bringing the hardcore "Piper". DJ Krust's "Soul In Motion" is released after being 15 months on dubplate.
The jungle breaks (amens) as we know them had totally disappeared from most tunes, making it quite hard to find a tune odd one out. World Dance put on their "last" (as they said) rave at Lydd Airport. "Here is your last chance before another chapter in 'Rave History' comes to an end!" say their adverts posted around London. 5 Telepathy Raves and Last Innovation Ever is held at the Camden Palace on August 30th. Goldie's album, originally planned for the summer gets delayed. Goldie walks out on Rob Playford.
But in 1997 there were labels, that tried to overcome the "fashion" -Juice , Splash , Back 2 Basics and Second movement kept releasing the tracks that were hard and underground - MTS ' "Hard Disk", New Concepts 14.98 and many other hard amen tracks including Dom & Roland s excellent work which was surprisingly overlooked.
1998 -End of style-splitting. The scene is back together, finally. Nothing is techstep, hardstep, intelligent etc. etc. it's all drum & bass. And, together with that, the amens are coming back: labels like True Playaz , Frontline , Juice, Splash, Timeless, Dread start putting out break tunes - Slow Down, the Real Vibes album and the never forgotten top tune Frozen Remix by Dom & Roland . The Labyrinth was nearly shut but then moved to the Pleasure Rooms in Tottenham, meaning it would hit it's 10th birthday and still provide the best line ups. DJ Ron makes the finest comeback with the Future Dubwise E.P. - unknown author, taken from globaldarkness
