All of these tracks can be found on YouTube, often with record label links should you wish to purchase hi resolution copies. Do the right thing. Support independent record labels and their artists!
Building these pages with accuracy and integrity will take time. Please keep popping back to see how we’re doing!
1996. The year that the drum and bass scene changed forever, and tech step came through like a digital tidal wave crashing through the ether. To us here, it was also the finite point in time where drum and bass (as a pure artform) came into being. The term drum and bass had been used collectively since 1991 as we have seen in previous sections, and had also been used to describe the mellower form of music that splintered off from mainstream jungle in ’94 and ’95, because while it was break driven, it definitely wasn’t jungle in a pure sense.
Our definition is this. If the snares and percussion are scattered across the whole 4 or 8 bars like traditional analogue drum samples, then it’s probably jungle. If there are breaks in the drum tracks (or if there aren’t) but there is a clearly defined snare on beat 2 and 4 of the bar (like in many of the tracks featured in this list), then it’s definitely drum and bass.
When hardstep and two step came through at the tail end of ’95, predominantly with Alex Reece’s Pulp Fiction (see our 1995 jungle section) the music redefined itself, and the term jungle just wasn’t accurate, or appropriate. The logical thing seemed to be to revert back to the drum and bass moniker, and it stuck ever since.
There was also a splinter genre in this year that focused on the use of American hip hop samples, from vocals right through to noodling keyboard riffs straight out of California. We’ve included some of those tunes here because while tech step was birthing itself, this style was also a massive part of the scene with its twisted Reese basslines and slapping beats.
So our definition is this: hardcore is hardcore, jungle tekno is jungle tekno, darkside is darkside, jungle is jungle. Everything else is drum and bass, and drum and bass as a musical entity started in 1996 with the advent of tech step. In a nutshell, it was when the breaks dropped away and that relentless stepping drum pattern took control.
Your opinion may be different, but to us, this is the distinct difference between jungle and drum and bass. As you work your way through this section you’ll see that the jungle drums didn’t fade overnight, and the breakbeat was still a musical focal point, but the intention was completely different, and so was the effect, so for this year we’re looking at killer tracks that embody the whole twelve month period, and defined the tech step scene in its own right. One of the defining features of golden era tech step was the length of the tunes. Averaging 6 minutes and often rolling into the 8’s and 9’s, the music was a journey in itself and gave the listener a chance to really get into the zone. We miss this a lot! Enjoy!
