Back catalogue: Drum And Bass/Jungle

Review: There's just no stopping Vibez '93 at the moment - the Dutch jungle label is swimming in legit gear and sharing it with the world. We're still reeling from the anonymous Punkrocker and Self Aware EPs. This time around there are names on the plates, as four artists throw down in maximum style. Janaway is up first with the ragga jungle badness of 'Reaching Out', while InnaSelf brings some more introspective pads and synth touches to their amen trickery. Evasion weaves a plush tapestry of ragged breaks, dreamy vocal licks and atmospheric flourishes for a curly advanced slice of jungle perfection and then Cheetah rounds the record off with the truly snare-rushing 'Bunnin' Up'.

Review: Vibez '93 is one of the must-check outposts for the Dutch d&b scene and in four years they've shaped up a mighty catalogue of ruffneck rollers and snare-rush slammers for your raving pleasure. This time around they're making space for Minos & InnaSelf to explore a variety of shades, from Minos' catchy-as-hell solo drop 'Jungle Massive' to the duo's fathoms deep soul cut 'Eclipse'. 'Look Good' takes things into even brighter territory facing diva vocals off against mellow ragga toasting, while 'Emerald' lays down rich synth lines for a truly atmospheric trip.

Review: Vibez '93 top up their relatively rare named artist series with a new one from Minos and Just Mack, two furtive and undersung artists whose collaborative efforts here move through an insane heat. Minos takes on the two establishing A-siders with 'Phantasm' and 'Roadblock', scoping out most of the midrange in favour of two hellish extravaganzas of plumb bass and mitre-saw breaks decapitations. The Just Mack collabs bring up the B-side, and move relatively dreamier and wildernessy, though they're not without their militant breaks focus; 'Run That Choon' is especially pitch-happy on the sample cutup, twisting and wringing the break out to high asphyxial heaven.

Review: Vibez 93 returns to the fore with a prime quartered cut of meatiness and freshness in equal measure. The 'Gorilla' EP opens with a reappropriation of Drake's 'Fair Trade' - on which the Canadian rapper denounces every first-world rapper's qualm from false equivalences to fake friends - pairing these with cleansing liquid breaks, musical Rhodesy ghost notes and quaking 808 basses aplomb. 'It's Love' recalls Orca with its fricative breaks and a barely filtered-in but effective vocal sample, while B-siders 'Mug Ya Self' and 'Gorilla' rework choice cuts from The Streets and Little Simz respectively, proving the UK's enduring efficacy on the now global d&b scene.

Review: No production outfit keeps a pace of output quite like Vibez '93. The latest four-track record from the shadowy d&b profuser now hears them summon sampled echoes of A Tribe Called Quest and Digable Planets respectively, culling choice acapella selections from the debut albums Low End Theory and Reachin', exegeting the former's titular theory for a hard transpose into sheller drum & bass. 'Electric Relaxation' and 'Check The Rhime' are blown out across a two-side jazzstep liquescence, while 'Cool Like That' and 'All Night Long' make for finer-brushed summer steps.

Review: The latest EP from Rotterdam drum & bass outfit Vibez 93 is a peaking roll-tastic high. 'Tokyo & Paris' spatters four liquid d&b tunes of various shape and size, with 'M38' opening on an anthemic note to contrast the dynamic liquid sub squirms of the A2's 'Green Eyes'. The B1 hears a sampled verse breezily cruise the Italian Amalfi Coast, before its foil emerges on the hip-d&b title track closes on a stoner-step homage to European travel, soundtracked by the sounds of a concrete jungle.

Review: It's never easy keeping up with Vibez 93 and his all-out assault on the D&B scene, from the roughest jungle cuts for the underground through to canny crowdpleasers like this record right here. 'Video' is a no-nonsense flip of India.Arie's 2001 soul classic, with a righteous lyrical message which sits perfectly atop some fresh and funky breakbeats. 'Westchester Circles' meanwhile doffs its cap to Adam F's none-more-iconic 'Circles' and its source material, 'Westchester Lady' by Bob James. No prizes for guessing the reference material on 'Everybody Loves The Sunshine '23', but this is a different version to the Roy Ayers classic which is going to be peak festival fodder this season. Then cap it off with a perfect slice of sunshine rollage in 'Brasilia' and you've got a record primed for tonnes of fun wherever it gets dropped.

Review: Vibez '93 has established itself as an essential destination for anyone interested in modern jungle iterations, not least the deeper end of the spectrum where ambient atmospherics meet with sharply-sliced breakbeats. Just check this new 12" on the label, credited to Vibez '93 itself and diving into some pitch-perfect amen juggling dreamscapes across four tracks. The pads are richly melodious, the beats rolling, the subs massive - sure, you might well hear the sound Bukem and co. pioneered back in the 90s on the likes of 'Affluence', but who could ever tire of that immaculate sound when it's done so right?

Review: Vibez 93 veers heavier than usual on their latest almost weekly jungle top-up, released again on their eponymous label (it's been so long, and yet it's still so not clear, as to whether Vibez is one person or many different "unknown artists"). So too is 'Brain Storm' an ironic name, since most brainstorming is usually done in silence, whereas this is just utterly cyclonic, flaunting an equally apt potential to the compel the body. On the A1, a suspenseful set of whodunit piano plinks pepper an otherwise industrial-strength dose of breaks shreddages. We're barely afforded any time to 'Cool Down' neither, not least since Vibez' idea of downtime amounts to little less than a further set of gnashings by the same backbeat. Only do 'Amigo' and 'Vulkaan', on the B, meanwhile, fully wrangle the listener with the ragga influence that was only teased so flirtatiously on the A, with straight-up taped-and -elaid soundclash samples, and lesional rapid-echo breaks, aplenty.

Review: The mysterious Vibez 93 returns to their white label series with more timeless breakbeat treats. Having moved away from the big bootleg styles, Vibez is now finding their own vibe with these powerful jungle-influence broken funk bombardments. Each cut sitting round that mid-late 90s era where both techstep and jungle were both dominant styles, highlights include the Moving Shadow style grace and breezes of 'Ripples' and the big dark booms of 'Self Aware'. The horn-heaved party power of the finale 'Blue' can't go without a shout either. Vibez by name, vibes by nature...

Review: UK drum n' bass producer Madcap's production credits extend all the way back to the early 90s, when LTJ Bukem was heralding him as a fledgling, yet time "fantastic" DNB visionary. Now a fledgling no more, 'Saxon Street' is his latest jungle offering for Rotterdam's Vibez' 93, and is a nonstop EP of fluffless breaks cruisers ('Fall Down') and impeccable, Brandy-sampling bouncers ('Combination', 'See Her').

Review: A cheeky new haul of waspish, sampleholic drum & bass from Vibez 93, the jungle producer-outfit whose exact articulation as an artistic identity, we can never quite place. But this is one of the exact reasons we've warmed to his craft, aside of course from the sparsely calculating yet vasodilatory ecstasy emissive from their music. 'Never Say Never' coolly samples the eponymous Brandy song - a morbid fixation of the jungle and 2-step garage scenes, to name but one - to the point of hardly even needing to quantize it to the breaks-grid, and yet it still works. 'Believe' complicates matters with boxier breakbeat blisters and emphatic "mashup!" jeers, while 'Touch' makes a subtler series of contacts, tacitly stroking both lobes with no less aggro beat clutches and high-reg plucksynths. We end on 'My Luv', another cool reprieve from the fatally unrelenting grind of breaksweight.

Review: From deep within the Fokuz empire, Vibez 93 continues to bring the fiercest blend of old-skool junglism and nu-skool production flair to utterly essential cuts for the widest of raves. On 'Midnight Owl' the pads spell out a smoky, immersive atmosphere, but that doesn't mean there's any hold back on the rolling breakbeat science. 'Violet' is a bit breezier in its demeanour thanks to some mellow chord licks and 'Forgotten' plummets into dank surroundings for a proper slice of breakbeat science as we've come to expect from this essential modern jungle label.

Review: Vibez '93 is on a roll, as we recall several of the Fokuz Recordings sub-outlet's best works through a throng of EP reissues. The 'Execution' EP is on the moniker's dirtier and rawer side, launching the listener's fledgling pirate voyage with 'Wheel Up' (its breakdown driven impeccably forward by acapella vocals from A Tribe Called Quest's 'Scenario'), followed shortly by the atmosfear-strikers 'Skazka' and 'Execution', and finally coming in to land on the axe-touting 'Execution', recalling the earliest of dark LTJ in its messy-hazy breaks, tribal calls and wiggly sound effects.

Review: The mysterious Vibez '93 are as prolific as they come; the 'Bad Kingdom' EP is certainly not the first of this productive drum & bass project/imprint's outputs to make it through our floodgates this year. Four slices of various productive forces - ranging from paddy jungle ('Jelly Swim'), to an unusual foray for '93: drilled-out techstep ('Labrea'). Otherwise, expect no nonsense, as this record spans both casual and not-so-casual floorfillers.