trance versus jungle

TRANCE V. JUNGLE 

The Wire, late 1993

by Simon Reynolds

Tastemakers are unanimous: when it comes to the scattered tribes

of the post-aciiied diaspora, trance is where it's at.  And 'ardkore

is held in universal disdain: junglist breakbeats and squeaky vocal

samples are regarded as risible signs of rave's degeneration into

'nuttercore', 150 b.p.m. kiddy-kartoon nonsense for E'd up hooligans.

For trance purists, programmed beats and all-electronic textures

indicate pure-blooded ancestry, rooted in the 'golden age' of

Detroit, as passed down through illustrious scions like Warp.  But in

music as in genealogy/genetics, purity is over-rated: it engenders

inbred enfeeblement. Miscegenation, mongrelisation and mutation are

the very stuff of evolution. So I'm here to hail rave's wayward,

RUFF-ian son, jungalistic hardcore, and direct some overdue

scepticism towards trance.

By any reckoning 'Trance Europe Express', Volume's double CD of

state-of-art techno, is a superb compilation: 24 tracks including

offerings by most of the prime movers in the field.  Nonetheless, the

comp has something of the air of epitaph about it: this is a genre

that's reached a dead end, etiolated by its own oppressive

tastefulness.  Trance's critical hegemony goes hand in hand with

textural homogeneity: the 'infinite possibilities' fanfared by

technophile critics too often boil down to a rather uniform and

impoverished array of 'cosmic' synth-timbres. While the best

exponents here (Orbital, Aphex, Bandulu) are opening up a new genre

of electronic composition, the lesser units (Psychick Warriors Ov

Gaia, The Source, Cosmic Baby) are little more than Tangerine Dream

or Vangelis with a modern beat: funkless, Aryan mood-muzak.

The alleged superiority of trance over jungle relies on the

questionable desirability of such an entity as 'armchair/intelligent

techno'. Is sedentary and contemplative somehow intrinsically a

higher, truer response than sweaty and mental?  This is simply

prog-rock snobbery.  Like the earnest conceptualists of the

Seventies, trance signifies its 'progressive' intentions by taking

its bleedin' time: at best (say, Orbital), this is an aesthetic of

sensuous ebb-and-flow (rather than ardkore's blipvert blitz).  Too

often, it means longeurs galore.

In fact, listening to trance can be a bit like going to church.

The genre does give itself pseudo-spiritual airs (hence the angelic

choral samples on Scubadevil's "Celestial Symphony", or the fact that

the top London club for trance is called 'The Knowledge').  Whereas

jungle is more pagan and voodoo. Its vulgar, indiscriminate approach

to sampling makes me think of cargo cults - hallucinating the sublime

and otherworldly in all manner of trash and pop-cultural jetsam.

Where trance's sampling is tasteful, discreet, a fusion-puree, jungle

is fissile: you can see the joins and that's so much more postmodern

and exciting. A typical jungle track is an epileptic/eclectic mish-

mash of incongrous textures (spooky ectoplasm rubs up against

gimmicky cartoon gibberish) and incompatible moods (mystic, manic,

macabre).  Jungle's cut'n'mix aesthetic owes as much to hip hop as to

techno; tracks have a machinic/organic, cyborg quality that recalls

the days before rap's slide into plausible, 'realistic' grooviness.

   

If you think 'ardkore means The Prodigy (who's great, anyway, The

Sweet of the 90's), you should really check out 'The Joint'. Label

compilations tend to be patchy, but this one excels because it's a

collaboration between two of ardkore's most innovative labels,

Suburban Base and Moving Shadow.  Most of the tracks have a schizoid

quality, flitting back and forth between jungle's two current modes:

happy'n'hyper and dark'n'demonic. Foul Play's "Open Your Mind"

oscillates between clammy synth-tones and billowing soul-chanteuse

harmonies.  Omni Trio's "Mystic Stepper" also has an unnerving

oxymoronic vibe, a sort of mournful euphoria: the "feel good" chorus

aches with a strange desolation. DJ Hype's "The Chopper" starts as a

pure rush (ricochetting hi-hat and Uzi-rattling snare, faecal-squirts

of bass-flatulence), then forlorn soul-diva ether wafts into the mix,

introducing an incongrous note of poignancy. DJ Krome & Mr Time's

"The Slammer", by comparison, is pure 'happy hardcore', a gorgeous,

fuzzily-reverbed piano figure entwined with a chorus that gushes

'dancing we dancing we losing control'.

The looped breakbeats + recognisable samples method initially

resulted in a deluge of white label mediocrity, provoking

proclamations of rave's death.  But Reinforced's recent sampler-EP

"Enforcers 4" shows that this aesthetic has matured; jungle has

thrived on media neglect.  Like the Moving Shadow & Suburban Base

crews, Reinforced's roster pile on the rollin' breaks to form a

sophisticated mesh of polyrhythms; beats are treated, reverbed,

'timestretched', even run backwards (on Manix' 'The X Factor'),

inducing a eerie feel of in-the-pocket funk and out-of-body delirium.

Over this roiling syncopation, ecstastic vocal plasma is molded and

modulated, an inner-body choir of sighs and whimpers that simulates

E's 'arrested orgasm' sensation.  Meanwhile, instead of basslines,

jungle's low-end has devolved into a radioactive ooze that impacts

you viscerally rather than aurally.

Ultimately, it is all down to a gut-level response, whether you

prefer trance's clockwork-regular Kraftwerk/Moroder pulse-grooves or

jungle's staccato, thrash-funk judder-quake.  It's whatever gets in

your pants, works your booty and your imagination.  But putting on my

critic's cap, I'd say that jungle's uproarious schizo-eclecticism is

paying greater dividends than trance's solemn purism. At its best,

jungle is like a gutternsnipe Can (same James Brownian rotorvation,

similar 'flow motion' ethos). Jungle is the bastard child of the John

Cage/Byrne & Eno/23 Skidoo avant-disco tradition, shunned and scorned

where the supposedly rightful inheritor of that tradition,

trance/ambient, is feted. But illegitimate heirs tend to lead more

interesting lives.