Drum And Bass/Jungle

Review: Coco Bryce's Diamond Life label has quickly established itself as a go-to source of music made in the style of early "jungle techno", as bass-heavy, breakbeat-powered dancefloor insanity was briefly known in the early 1990s. The latest producer to try and recapture the raw energy of that period is Jungle Rollerz regular Necrotype. The beard-sporting Brightonian begins in confident fashion with "Yosei", where spacey chords, futurist electronic riffs and pitched-up vocal samples rapidly rise above sweaty, snareheavy breaks and a booming bassline. The fun continues on flipside cut "Breakthrough", which contrasts heavy bottom-end bass and breakbeats with some deliciously loved-up pads and dreamy vocal samples.

Review: There's no denying the quality (or quantity, for that matter) of Tim Reaper's mid-90s style jungle workouts. His bounding, floor-friendly cuts have been everywhere in 2018, or at least a dizzying array of retro-futurist record labels. Here he provides more quality dancefloor ammunition, with four fine cuts stretched across a dubplate style ten-inch double-pack. Highlights include the intoxicating skank of "The General", where hazy toaster vocal samples and jumpy reggae riffs ride heavy dub bass and skittish jungle beats, the all-out sub-bass assault of "The Walls of Jericho" (another dub-powered peak-time blinder) and the slowly building jungle dub madness of closing cut "Jarreau Dub", which includes some seriously snare-heavy drums.

Review: Given his impressive track record and length of service, you'd expect Break's latest full-length - his first studio set for three years - to be pretty darn hot. It is, of course, with the Symmetry Recordings owner gleefully flitting between jazz-funk tinged soulful rollers ("Last Goodbye"), ruffneck revivalist jungle ("Keepin' It Raw", "Jungle Desire"), on-point dancefloor collaborations (Total Science hook-up "Dog's Dinner" and DLR hoe-down "City Slickers"), skanking D&B steppers ("Conversations"), deep and picturesque liquid funk ("The Edge of Time") and frenetic, bass-heavy smashers ("Sunset Dub" and the suitably snappy retro-futurism of "Time To Fly"). It is, then, a pretty impressive, on-point collection of razor-sharp D&B club cuts.