Since the last edition of All Crews we’ve seen several new styles of Jungle Drum & Bass gain traction in North America. We’re no gatekeepers here at All Crews HQ, and the best thing about these Jungle Drum & Bass-adjacent sounds is how hard they are to pigeonhole. But in case you missed them, here’s the debrief on a few newer takes on Jungle Drum & Bass that have taken off in the US, and the world over.
Footwork-Jungle:
The manic drum tracks used by dancers in Chicago to Juke and Footwork to, have long been an established sub-genre of dance music, pioneered by producers like RP Boo as well as DJ Rashad’s Teklife crew. But by the 2010s producers in both the US and the UK had begun fusing elements of these rhythm tracks with Jungle Drum and Bass, like New York’s MachineDrum and Bristol’s Phillip D Kick/Om Unit.
Some UK and European artists were pioneers of the sound, but the style is heavily influenced by the US club sounds it draws from and some US labels like California’s JBW (Juke, Bounce, Werk) consistently release tracks of this style.
In London Sherelle’s Hooversound label helped launch the Footwork-Jungle sounds into the UK dance music mainstream. They’ve broken the sound big and sets by their artists are some of the most diverse sets out there bringing Junglists, Techno heads and Footworkers under one roof.
Some of the key artists:
Machinedrum (New York City), Phillip D Kick/Om Unit (Bristol), Sinistarr (Detroit), SWISHA (New York), Fracture (London), Addison Groove (Bristol)
Halftime:
London’s Ivy Lab (Sabre, Stray and Halogenix.) and their 20/20 label are often credited with pioneering this mash-up between slickly produced Drum & Bass and instrumental half-time hip-hop in the 2010’s. But it’s proven so popular in the states that Ivy Lab have relocated out there. Sabre told the RA Exchange podcast that the style is so removed from traditional Drum and Bass that when he first played it at Sun and Bass he ‘got it in the neck’ from a crowd not ready for the new, slower sound that draws inspiration from minimal Drum & Bass. It’s now grown to become a staple sound at many of the US’s most large-scale outdoor events, on both coasts.
Some of the key artists: Ivy Lab (London), G Jones (Santa Cruz), EPROM (Portland), Tsuruda (Los Angeles), Alix Perez (Aoetearoa/New Zealand), Deft (London), Fixate (London),
