Liftin’ Spirits & DJ Persuasion // Transmission 96
(Liftin’ Spirits Records)
A devoted celebration of a golden era in the evolution of jungle and drum & bass, from one OG legend and a next generation disciple.
The jungle revival is a deceptive concept, given that people never stopped chopping up breaks at any point since the dawn of hardcore and hip-hop. Certainly the sea change through the 00s as grime and dubstep blew up pushed D&B and jungle to the fringes for a while, but moments out of the spotlight tend to fortify scenes with die-hard foundations, only to come back stronger. That’s the context crews like Rupture came up in, perfectly positioned to provide the framework when the likes of Tim Reaper, Dwarde et al came bounding into earshot with their dazzling, devotional sound. At this point jungle has matured into an elder form of soundsystem music, where remaining faithful to the principles of the genre is as crucial as any fresh lick the next generation can bring. Of course there are artists who get more cavalier with the tenets of the genre, and production tools and open-eared audiences mean the limits to experimentation are next to none these days, but true-skool, contemporary jungle feels vibrant and inspired even within the relatively rigid idea of what the music ‘should’ be.
The issue when it comes to genre-faithful dance music is that lazy or cynical imitation shows its hand pretty quickly. Anyone can grab Blu Mar Ten’s Jungle Jungle sample pack and slap some breaks on their project. What matters is the heart and intention behind the music. As such, it’s the perfect time for an album like Transmission 96, which spells out its referential, reverential angle in the title alone. This album is absolutely a love letter to a very specific point in D&B history, when the difference of a year or two through the 90s makes a huge difference in terms of the particulars of the sound. Most importantly, there can be no doubting the sincerity of the operators involved.
Liftin’ Spirits is Ant Miles, a veritable legend with a direct hand in the forging of jungle and drum & bass from the point he formed Origin Unknown and Ram Records with Andy C in 1992. People with even a passing knowledge of jungle will probably recognise the weight of that heritage, although it was Andy C who wound up one of the world’s most famous D&B DJs. Being a touch younger, DJ Persuasion’s story starts later, but it takes in an impressive tour through underground ructions in UK club music from his days as Semtek helming the highly respected Don’t Be Afraid label through to the emergence of DJ Persuasion through authoritative, hyper-specific hardcore, jungle and D&B mixes (check the archive here) that wound up released as tapes on the likes of Berceuse Heroique, The Trilogy Tapes and Tape Echo. There’s a level of detail to those mixes that finds the sweet spot between rampant nerdism and real world experience — someone living and breathing the culture. Don’t sleep on his Ulterior Motives label either, which has been slipping out some essential EPs relatively recently.
While the source of their collaboration is a little vague, it seems that Persuasion reached out to Miles with ideas that sparked Miles’ inspiration, and Transmission 96 quickly gathered momentum. It has the cohesive sound of an album born from a burst of ideas and the exponential rush of a creative partnership, each track loaded with its own particular palette but all bound together by an expert balance of ruffneck soul and street-ready rave. Since the dawn of atmospheric jungle there have been ample examples of excessive synth-soaked platitudes and dislocated divas awash in saccharine seas, while at the same time the scene is all too often bogged down by dead-eyed machismo — studio brawn and unchecked aggression taking precedence over any sense of soulfulness. Miles and Persuasion find a perfect balance, making Transmission 96 incredibly satisfying to listen to.
‘Tuffness Direct’ is a darkside, hardcore-referencing workout for sure, but it’s also imbued with a sense of fun. You can hear the ebullient engineering on the mecha-Reese bass as it courses through the track, LFOs bending and flexing without derailing the dread. ‘Without Me’ is draped in plucked guitars bordering on flamenco and airy string pads — on paper it sounds like a fast track to liquid banality, but Miles and Persuasion hold onto the smouldering sentimentality with a necessary shot of melancholy to hit that little bit deeper.
They’re certainly not shy to dial in the kind of serotonin rush moments that were creeping in with the first hints of jump up in 1996. On the opening track ‘Control’ the first half of the track already feels like a fully realised idea — a lushly melodic stepper with just a little tickle of mystery, and then the drop swaggers in with understated, deadly poise. The slow modulation of the wobbly, artfully distorted sub calls back to Krust’s brand of heavyweight minimalism — a fundamental element of soundsystem music.
Transmission 96 is certainly not a minimal album in the grand scheme of D&B — it’s full bodied across the frequency range, with dynamic arrangements that pack plenty of shocks and surprised without ever feeling overcooked. It’s hard to overstate how much skill it takes to achieve that effect, but there are so many moments throughout the album that cut through and hit right in the pleasure centre of any rave devotee. At the same time, it’s not a showy album trying novel tricks to get your attention. A track like ‘Shell Beach’ simply rolls, every flicker of a sample in the right place, treated the right way. It almost defiantly refuses to reinvent the wheel.
Born of love for a particular moment in time, bursting with heart and soul and carrying that all-important sense of freshness, it’s a record to present to anyone who thinks the best jungle and D&B stopped being made in the mid 90s.
[Note: For further reading, we recommend you check out the interview with Miles and Persuasion on 1 More Thing, run by the excellent bassweight reporter Dangerous Dave Jenkins.]
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