- Yes, jungle and UK hardcore are everywhere at the moment. But R-Zone 5—the latest installment in an anonymous, Creme Organization-affiliated series—sets its sights a little earlier than the likes of Special Request, Etch or Tessela. The "pair of established producers" who made this record (one of whom, apparently, runs a "prominent" German label) pass over the jungle era, harking back to a time when hardcore was just bootstrap house music for pill-strewn British warehouses—cheap, mongrel and joyously effective.
"Jungle Raver," with its clattery breakbeats and plonky digi-flute, sounds quite willfully ramshackle. There's little attempt to spruce things up with modern technology, or to pass any comment on the style with the benefit of web-age hindsight. This is timewarp floor gear, nothing more, and therein lies its charm—as well as its limitations. "Down-E Rave" is similar, but the real treats lie on the B-side, where things take on an increasingly modern sheen. The "Happy Mix" of "nRg Zone" is actually rather downcast, its soupy synth pattern bobbing and weaving over the usual canned breakbeats and and periodically descending into the reverbed depths of the mix. Its "Moody" counterpart centres on a glistening chord progression that unfurls with steady grace. By this point it's not clear precisely what year we're in, but the hour—somewhere between 4 and 6 AM, by my reckoning—is instantly recognisable.
Tracklist A1 Jungle Raver
A2 Down-E Rave
B1 nRg Zone (Happy Mix)
B2 nRg Zone (Moody Mix)