The music of the descendants of captured Africans has had an immense influence on Western music. However, there is a hierarchical system, which has resulted in European music being situated at the top, while Black music ends up at the bottom. This is due to enduring racial stereotypes found in white supremacy works such as Charles Darwin’s infamous book The Descent Of Man, where he compares Africans as being closer to gorillas than the human race.

Black music is defined as popular music rather than art music. Unlike Western music, the African musical aesthetic does not have a clear separation between different forms of artistic expression. Therefore, dance can be found in music, music can be found in architecture, and dance will be seen in sculpture.

The sense of the sacred is central to the African paradigm. One of the major misconceptions about African music is that it is based on repetition and has no sense of harmony. In reality, African music is a remarkable science based on mathematical rhythmic formulas, using the same kind of complexity found in aperiodic geometric patterns in tiles which never repeat. There is a subtle use of accents in regard to harmony which can be found in African marimba music, and rhythmical formulas as basis for harmonic systems can be found through all music of the African diaspora. Ornette Coleman called this harmolodics, giving equal weight to rhythm and harmony.

This concept is also found in the Caribbean artform known as reggae, especially in the electroacoustic experimental music called dub. In this music, subtle shifts in time and space are created by the use of delay and filtering along with other electronic elements to create an otherworldly music. Played in dancehalls through giant speakers, it creates a sacred space, where one’s heart is rejuvenated by the music, so one can continue to live in Babylon – Western society.

All Black music in the Western hemisphere has as a central paradigm an eschatological ontology. This metaphysical concept is how the captured Africans were forced to work as slaves in the brutal regime of their new European masters, who made them very aware of how fragile their existence was. The next day might be your last day, as you were forced to work until you dropped, or were caught trying to escape this horrendous environment. Developing this way of knowing made it possible to survive in such a hostile environment.

Dub was the first experimental electroacoustic music I heard. The use of noise elements, dissonance and extreme echo and flange effects provided me with the tools to appreciate the musique concrète works of Pierre Schaffer and Pierre Henry, the electronic music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage and Pauline Oliveros. Unfortunately, our masters of experimental music, King Tubby, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Scientist, are sadly missing from books about electroacoustic music. Like their Western counterparts, these innovators were obsessed with creating new sounds; King Tubby’s knowledge of delays and filtering is second to none.

When I heard jungle for the first time, it had the same sense of shock and otherworldliness as when I first heard improvised music artists such as John Stevens, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Tony Oxley and Howard Riley. What I loved about those early jungle recordings was the openness to experimentation, a total disregard for conventional song form structure, and the use of extreme tempos and collage to create a new music. I truly believe that there is a sense of klangfarbenmelodie, a musical expression developed through the use of sound-colour melody used to great effect in the great jungle tracks.

All the tracks below were made in 1994–5 and still sound fresh today. In my view, when jungle morphed into the more palatable drum ’n’ bass, it lost track of its innovative heritage, as the pieces were being put together for the popular market. Drum ’n’ bass, far more polite than the apocalyptic sounds of jungle, became the new urban chic sound of the UK, and you could drink your cafe latte in peace.

Splash
“Babylon (Original Mix)”
Dee Jay 12" 1995

Darren Ellis, the man behind Splash, created a work that had all the elements that drew me towards jungle. The use of sirens, dissonance, seemingly out-of-place string sounds and at least three radical drum patterns, all within the first 30 seconds, and when the vocal “Babylon…” is introduced underpinned by frenetic timestretched drums with an atonal and constantly changing bassline, it was all fresh to my ears. Ellis continues the experimental legacy of King Tubby and Lee Perry, and without doubt we were witnessing a new musical form.

M-Beat featuring General Levy
“Incredible”
Renk 12" 1994

What first struck me here is the phenomenal and outrageous vocal by General Levy, his extended vocal performance incorporating squeaks and bird calls, toasting at breakneck speed reminiscent of the great deejays I-Roy and U-Roy. As if this isn’t mesmerising enough, there are shocking turbulent drums and an ominous bassline which let you know producer Marlon Hart is a master of EQ and understands how to create tension by using subtle reverb, especially on the snares. Radical to say the least.

Cutty Ranks
“Six Million Ways To Die (DJ Stretch Mix)”
From Ragga In The Jungle (Street Tuff) 1995

This is truly extraordinary. It includes a bassline that could have been composed by Pierre Boulez, and the complexity of the drum patterns is what makes this piece so shocking. There is a constant use of extreme flanging, showing Stretch is no mug when it comes to sophisticated signal processing. It is all meticulously woven together yet gives the impression of spontaneity.

Firefox & 4-Tree featuring Junior Tucker
“Warning”
Philly Blunt 12" 1994

This piece, created by Roni Size and brother Carl Williams, is a masterwork. It uses different types of flanges on the cymbals and hi hats which are doubled up on the snares, with the utilising of various reverbs. On top of this already complex brew is a startling use of reversed breakbeats with an eerie bassline, creating a surreal audio pointillism, all in an extraordinary track under five minutes long.

DJ Krust
“Set Speed”
V Recordings 1995

Without doubt, one of the most distinct sounds in the jungle canon, “Set Speed” can be seen as the template for the later drum ’n’ bass style. The harmolodic bassline helps to keep the sizzling drums in place, and the John Williams guitar chord gives this piece a special dissonance that tracks of the late 1990s lacked. Subtle use of phasing and filtering is the key to sounding menacing. A true classic.

Pat Thomas’s New Jungle Jazz: Remembering is reissued by Feedback Moves. Subscribers to The Wire can read Clive Bell’s 2021 interview with Pat Thomas via Exact Editions