Drum & Bass | Jungle 364 Items

Fokuz Recording mainstays The Vanguard Project providing us some liquid goodness on the 101st release.

The journey continues for Nuage as the Russian beat smith proudly unveils his superb debut EP on the coveted Microfunk Music. A sophisticated bouquet of audible delight from across the electronic spectrum, the "Romantic OD" EP is a 5-piece wonder showcasing Nuage at his very best. Featuring the Microfunk commander-in-chief Bop, expect a world of ambient-jungle crossed with lo-fi electronica with sprinklings of everything in-between.

A generation younger than the founders of the Teklife crew, DJ Rashad and DJ Spinn, DJ Taye was originally a rapper and beat maker before hooking up with the collective and jumping into the world of footwork production and DJing. However, it was Rashad’s untimely passing in 2014 that was the unlikely catalyst for developing the sounds and ideas for this album. He says, "When Rashad passed away I felt inspired to continue evolving the music that I loved so much coming up in this world. So, I had to do something…make something brand new." 100% committed to pushing further the potential of the footwork template, Still Trippin’ is ambitious in its range and scope. Taking two years to formulate, the record broadens the possibilities of the sound, forcing it to adapt to songwriting, and also revives Taye’s talent for MCing and producing beats to which he can rap and sing. Furthermore Taye definitely ups the ante with his complex and precise drum programming, never losing sight of footwork’s ability to confound. The album features a range of guests that span contemporary music; the eccentric, instructive rapping of Chuck Inglish of Detroit duo the Cool Kids is featured on ‘Get It Jukin’, Odile Myrtil, a young vocalist from Montreal, lends her smokey soul to ‘Same Sound’, Fabi Reyna, the editor of the celebrated women’s guitar magazine She Shreds, sings and plays bass and rhythm guitar on ‘I Don’t Know’ and Jersey club queen UNIIQU3 offers production and rapping on ‘Gimme Some Mo’.Also, Teklife members DJ PayPal and DJ Manny assist on production, and DJ Lucky is a guest MC on ‘Smokeout’. Taye is ambitious in his hopes for the album; "I took this as an opportunity to not have boundaries with footwork. Different approaches to our ‘underground’ sound to make it broader. It’s only underground until it crosses that visible threshold.” This album brings all of this to the forefront.

2022 repress

Whilst reflecting influences as varied as Billie Holiday, Gladys Knight, Tina Turner and Chaka Khan, Los Angeles-based Lady Blackbird (aka Marley Munroe) possesses a style and emotional intensity that is very much her own. Her forthcoming debut album Black Acid Soul presents a wholly fresh take on the jazz vocal idiom from an artist blessed with a bold, unmistakable voice. Last year Lady Blackbird released her spellbinding single "Collage" which saw her delve into a beautiful psychedelic soul sound, whilst still remaining close to her jazz roots. The track now receives two Calibre remixes.

2022 repress

Newly formed London-based jungle collective 4am Kru have been making big waves in the UK's flourishing jungle scene in 2021. Showcasing their immersive brand of hardcore-tinged 1993 flavoured jungle, the Good Time EP marks their vinyl debut with 4 timely cuts from their 2021 digital back catalogue on Embrace The Real Records.

Phase steps up for his first solo Metalheadz release after previously appearing on the label alongside Villem for ‘The Traveller EP’ in 2016. The young Belgian shows off his skills across 4 tracks (one of them a collaboration with Zero T) on the ‘Stakes EP’, displaying a mature and accomplished sound that not only fits in but also stands out in the Metalheadz catalogue.

Miles001 consists of two contemporary re-edits of some widely appreciated tracks that everyone should know. The A-side is a reflip of a certain trance anthem from the 90s. The B-side contains a rework of a RnB'ish charthit from not too long ago. Hazardous D&B reworks for club situations!

2022 repress
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Mézigue aka Mezmother from different brother comes back with a new 4 trackers based on the will of D. (as being part of it). Represent is the first collaboration between Mézigue and Mad Rey on this D.KO release showing their roots. Sixk is pretty much on the same vibe but Uchu A NO Neko is a Japanese-ish electronic ballad full with the mézigue's melodic instinct. MO D. Bass is a d n b track asking for more drum n bass. Mézigue is still looking for the last island in the new world using the path of electronic music. As they say if you ain’t like it ain’t listen to it.

Dutch hardcore hip hop crew Dope D.O.D teams up with Italian hard Drum & Bass duo Shadow Sect for a solo track and a remix with Hallucinator.

You know the thrill! 2 heady jungle jams on a 10".

A download code is included.

Next on the label that only releases tracks at One Hundred and Seventy Five beats per minute, come two tracks that are quite different from one another. "The Opposites" strongly relies on the contrast between melody and extremely energetic percussion, tied together by the voice of a girl who wonders how close two people can get without triggering "their crazy". The track's friendly atmosphere almost makes it a Crossbreed love song of sorts. The much harsher flip side of this release entitled "More Primitive" deals with a different kind of issue: what happens when people get pushed hard, forced to act on instinct... the moment their true, often damaged, selves are revealed. The seventeenth release on One Seven Five is proof that The Outside Agency still has a lot more tricks up its sleeve, showing the world what Crossbreed is all about.

C.Z. debuts on LA's Evar Records with the uncompromising Heat Index EP.

The Los Angeles-based producer, beatmaker and DJ sets a course through IDM, techno, jungle and trance to deliver five frenetic, emotionally-charged dancefloor cuts.

Over the course of an intensely productive career, Colby Zinser (aka C.Z.) has made music spanning genres like pop, rap, hardcore and jungle. As well as releasing music as C.Z., he's operated multiple aliases, including the prolific Ice Underlord. Drawing from a longstanding fascination with breaks, trance and the IDM of artists like Warp Records' Clark, he's developed his own rich and eclectic style of club music - a sound that crystalized on his 2020 debut album Hyperfocus.

C.Z. emerged from 2020 armed with a mass of new dancefloor tracks, freshly inspired to make club music a central focus, after years of smuggling techno, trance and breaks elements into the rap beats he was making for others. As he explains: 'It's great to come back to music and just make what I love, I don't want to be someone else's secret weapon, I want to be my own.' Heat Index refuses to toe a line, steering skillfully through genres and setting a tone that oscillates between club-fuelled euphoria, heartbreak and the looming threat of planetary crisis.

Opener 'Midnight' rattles along at a breathless 160 BPM, transporting you to a breakdown in the middle of a pounding hard trance set. Within a minute the rushing neon trance synths collide with huge, sub destroying kicks. The title track 'Heat Index' follows, with brooding pads bolted onto a tight breakbeat, leaving space open for the razor sharp, searching synth line.

Moving rapidly through the gears, 'Hurricane' is an aptly titled exercise in precision programmed classic jungle breaks, carried forward by bubbling earworm melodies. 'Retrograde' shifts the focus again - a pitch-black, dark, fast and seething techno track ripe for warehouses and dungeons, before 'Radial Lens', a melodic, anthemic set-closer built on a muscular, downtempo break.

C.Z.'s first appearance on Evar Records, the LA label founded in 2020 by Trickfinger and Aura T-09, follows a series of hard-hitting releases from Speed Dealer Moms, Limewax and Kilbourne, all artists who like C.Z., are able to traverse twisted electronica, club music and pure abstraction with ease. 'I want to help encourage a more open electronic music space, less pretentious, and encompassing all genres.' C.Z. says. 'It's an important goal of mine, and one the label shares.' Heat Index is a wide-ranging EP from a versatile producer, and a celebration of unfettered expression, for minds and dancefloors free from inhibition or genre restriction.

North American bad boys Atic & Exosphere turn up the heat on US-based DJ Trace's 117 imprint. Trench Terror & Animals push sound design to the edge, with the aim to punish the dance floor. Available December 3rd on grey marbled vinyl.