[HomerJ]

Jungle/Drum N Bass

Drum and bass (commonly abbreviated to as DnB, drum n bass and drum & bass) is a type of electronic dance music also known as jungle.

Its most recognizable features are fast tempo (160-180 BPM) broken beat drums with loud intricate basslines.

In spite of its specific characteristics which would appear to limit its variety, drum and bass is a very varied musical style, ranging from laid back jazzy tracks like Roni Size's "Brown Paper Bag" to radio friendly dance track's like Shy FX's "Shake Ur Body" to ragga influenced rude bwoy tracks like Chase & Status' "2 Tone Sound" to atmospheric and moody tracks like 4 Hero's "Mr Kirk's Nightmare" to extremely fast, forbidding & aggressive techstep tracks like Technical Itch's "Stealth". This is only a sample of its variety, which could be compared to that of jazz.

It began as an offshoot of the United Kingdom breakbeat hardcore and rave scene and came into existence in the early 1990s. Over the first decade of its existence, drum and bass saw many permutations in style, incorporating everything from reggae, hiphop, jazz, techno, house, funk and metal to trance.

Drum and bass evolved from the acid house period in late 1980s Britain which laid the foundations for both hardcore and jungle. Key tracks were Renegade Soundwave's 'The Phantom' and 'Ozone Breakdown' (both 1988), Meat Beat Manifesto's 'Radio Babylon' (1989), 808 State's 'Cubik' (1990), and Humanoid's 'Stakker Humanoid' (1988); all are examples of acid-era experimentation with breaks and bass. In addition, the bleep techno (or Yorkshire Bleeps and Bass) sound of 1989 - 1991 would prove hugely influential, featuring bass-heavy cuts by acts such as Unique 3, Nexus 21, Nightmares on Wax and LFO, and spearheaded by Sheffield's Warp Records. The third immediate and direct influence on drum and bass' existence was the 'Belgian Techno' sound, actually an internationally-created fusion of hardcore, house and techno, pioneered by Joey Beltram, LA Style, Frank De Wulf, CJ Bolland, Richie Hawtin and others. This scene existed briefly from approximately 1989-1990 to 1992 at the very latest, during which period there was much cross-pollination with the UK hardcore sound. This sound did survive in various forms in its mother countries - primarily Belgium, Holland and Germany - beyond 1992, but the general scenes in these countries had shifted over to trance, house, industrial techno or gabba (or happy hardcore / hard house, in UK terms).

Jungle vs. drum and bass

Nowadays the difference between jungle or oldschool jungle and drum and bass is a common debate within the junglist community. There is no universally accepted semantic distinction between the terms "jungle" and "drum and bass". Some associate "jungle" with older material from the first half of the 1990s (sometimes referred to as "jungle techno"), and see drum and bass as essentially succeeding jungle [24]. Others use jungle as a shorthand for ragga jungle, a specific sub-genre within the broader realm of drum and bass. In the U.S., the combined term "Jungle Drum and Bass" (JDB) has some popularity, but is not widespread elsewhere. Probably the widest held viewpoint is that the terms are simply synonymous and interchangeable: drum and bass is jungle, and jungle is drum and bass.

"At the end of the day I am an ambassador for Drum and Bass the world over and have been playing for 16 years under the name Hype... To most of you out there Drum and Bass will be an important part of your lives, but for me Drum and Bass/Jungle is my life and always has been... We all have a part to play and believe me when I say I am no fucking bandwagon jumper, just a hard working Hackney man doing this thing called Drum and Bass/Jungle." DJ Hype[25]