ALBUM RECOMMENDATIONS |

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The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

Various Artists

[#] Jungle Massive Collective 1 (1994)

Reviewed May 7, 2025

Of limited but sharply retro ravey appeal.

I'm no jungle expert--fuck, I ain't even a jungle amateur--but a free rip of Jungle Massive Collective 1 on the Internet Archive piqued my curiosity and hasn't quite let go. I tend to like my electronica on the grubbier, clunkier side, and this 1994 collection of some surprisingly obscure producers (the biggest name here is LTJ Bukem) is right at the peak of jungle before it became the glossier drum and bass to the world. This is a vibrant mix of moods too, with "Music"'s chime, "Screwface"'s eerie back alley murk, and "What Ya Gonna Do"'s washy atmospherics, among others. That said, this is probably not a great introduction to the style; its old, it's pretty obscure, it's not all hits, the tracks aren't really mixed together any, and fatigue does set in over its 78-minute runtime.

As for what personally grabs me, M Beat opens the disc with "Style", matching memorably choppy toasts and vocal samples with sub bass stabs and coolly flowing percussion. Honestly, I like the tracks with a focus on rap and vocals the best, a la The Plastic Jam's "Slow Down" or Undercover Agent's "Ruffer". They not only pull the instrumentals forward in a really ear-grabbing way, they also just tend to be the better written songs here. Compare to the Ray Keith and Nookie remix of "Made in Two Minutes", which sure sounds it. The dinky repetition in tracks like those belie jungle's origins, though; this isn't pop music or some modern "nostalgic" imitation, this is a real warts-and-all artifact of the 90s British rave scene. If that interests you, try it out.

Essential:	Quintessential:	Non-Essential:	Rating:
"Style", "Ruffer", "What Ya Gonna Do"	"Nocturnal"	"Made in Two Minutes"

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