Despite it’s UK origins, Jungle Drum & Bass fans quickly gathered across Europe as the more producers, punters, DJs and dancers encountered the sound on the mainland.. and nowadays it’s no different! In this All Crews International we chat to a few heads from Belgium, Lithuania, Montenegro and Ukraine about their love of all things Jungle Drum & bass.
The Untouchables
Which three tracks of yours are you most proud of and why?
Ah, that’s a tough one, we’ve made so many tunes over the years. We make music for different reasons, sometimes it’s deep and soulful to listen to, and sometimes it’s a heavy hitter for the dancefloor. I think the three tracks would have to be:
Lifeforms on Rupture:
With this one we went deep down the rabbit hole. Using a lot of our outboard units, most of it was recorded live. It was a fun experiment that came together naturally!
Tread this Land on 45seven:
This one is a potion of dub and it was cooked up with the Untouchable’s spices and the spells of a wizard. This one is really magical!
Lastly, Fouls Game on Samurai Music:
The battle of the samplers, old skool vs new skool, tech vs heavy. We busted out the old Emu & the new MPC and treated every sound through them both.
Please tell our All Crews readers about your Black Rhino Radio Show:
We took this radio show to showcase music that we like and artists that we are really feeling! It’s a monthly show on Black Rhino Radio called Bass Music, it’s all about the Bass! We usually try to get some guests on too; we always tell them they can play any tempo, just as long as the Bass is heavy.
What can listeners expect to hear from the Untouchables in 2025?
We have a release on BXL Underground coming in early 2025, we are finishing our three albums on Samurai Music, we have a Remix coming out on Conveyor, but that will be towards the end of 2025 and there will be a few Mutable Beats releases as well.
Find The Untouchables on: Instagram, SoundCloud, Radio
IJO
What are 3 elements do you think make for a great producer?
Focus on being true to yourself—listen to your heart, be your own biggest fan and toughest critic, and avoid trying to mimic others. Strive to create something unique without worrying about fitting into trends.
What can listeners expect to hear from you in 2025?
Honestly, I’m not sure. Recently, I’ve been slower in making music, but it’ll likely be something unexpected—a fresh direction with new ideas and experiments.
You produce different genres of music, which genre presents the most unique challenges in your opinion?
Each genre demands a different mindset and approach to both songwriting and production. While it’s challenging, it’s also incredibly rewarding, as it deepens my understanding and creativity in those areas.
Find IJO on Instagram, Bandcamp
Neekeetone
How do you maintain motivation to produce the number and quality of tracks that you do?
I have wanted to make music since I was a little boy. I’ve seen only one way, so now I’m feeling like my dream comes true. I also became disappointed with a regular job, so I’m waking up and just starting to make tunes.
I have watched a few of your reels and see that you also work with young people on music too, tell us more…
My kids are watching reels and it seems that’s how the new generation consumes information. So I’m trying to get into this. I haven’t figured it out yet and haven’t achieved enough success, but I think it works anyway.
Since you don’t live in the UK, what do you think are some of the benefits and drawbacks of producing jungle so far away from its birthplace?
There are no borders to make Jungle music, you can do it anywhere! But if you’re a guy with a Russian passport, you should “cut down the biggest oak in the forest with a herring” to play shows in the UK and even in the EU. It’s my biggest pain at the moment. Help!
Find Neekeetone on Bandcamp, Instagram, Soundcloud
I Wannabe
I have always been curious about your production name, I Wannabe, can you please tell our readers about that?
History comes back almost 2 decades ago to my first release in 2007, I thought of an artist name that was an interesting concept for this and future releases. So I picked a name which can make one phrase together with the track title. Previously I was a member of a local Jungle Drum & Bass forum called junglist.com.ua where I was registered since 2004 as “Wannabe DJ” – as I really wanted to become one.
So I messed around with the title for a long time and came up with this: “I Wannabe” as an artist name.”Proud of myself” as the track title, will make “I wannabe proud of myself”. I was happy with this concept for one release and then started to give up, but I kept the name.
How did you get started producing Jungle Drum & Bass?
History gets us back even to earlier times. In 1999-2000 I already was into Jungle Drum & Bass music and I totally was sure from that moment that it was my sound. At that time I already made some steps in making music in any possible way for me as I got my first computer. The music itself was very hard for me to find. I had not yet found the community and the internet was slow as hell.
Four years later, I found DJ courses to learn that skill and I was very lucky because both of my teachers were Jungle Drum & Bass DJs. I imitated the sound of Drum & Bass more and more and started producing more and more Drum & Bass.
What can listeners expect to hear from you in 25’?
With my moniker Andrey Sirotkin, which I use for techno and electronic music since 2022 I released at least one track every 3 weeks. Now I’m trying to go with this tempo for Drum & Bass as well. The same moniker, Andrey Sirotkin, implemented my long term dream to release different versions of one track, Original mix, dancefloor version and maybe something like, ambient mix. It varies but the concept looks this way.
This approach led me to find what I call recycling tracks, copying and switching tracks into Drum & Bass tempo (after it’s finished at some point of production). From there I finish that as a Drum & Bass track. Not all tracks work this way but when I feel this possibility, I’m all in. It started with my track Andrey Sirotkin – “Who to blame” for which I created an I Wannabe remix. Then it was Andrey Sirotkin – “Woman he Love” which also came with an I Wannabe remix. But now I’m thinking that I will release tracks with no connection between projects. So both tracks will have the same title and have different artist names.
For I Wannabe it was a good year of collabs (DJ Shon, Forgiven Soul) and I would like to continue to collaborate with artists I never made collabs with before and of course vinyl. My first vinyl release was on my label Deviant Drums, it’s already 6 years old. So maybe it’s time to go with a 2nd release
