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Reaper x gon give it to ya11/14/2022 So maybe that made me sort of discover as much as I did. “When you have no one to show you the way, you have to guide your own path and discover stuff yourself. When I mention that this seems pretty unusual – most dance obsessives I know came to the music through nightlife and friendship, rather than the other way around – he agrees, and points out how this affected his creative development. His schoolfriends more interested in popular grime and R&B (“I guess really strong bass was a little bit too much for them”), he spent hours scouring YouTube and jungle forums, gradually finding a community of like-minded bass fans as he went. And I found myself listening to those tunes in particular, more so than any drum and bass up to that point.”įor a while, Tim Reaper’s desire to get into jungle was a fairly lonely pursuit. There was a fake DJ Hype profile on there and they had, like, ‘ Super Sharp Shooter’ and stuff on there. At that time MySpace was popular, so I used to rip music off MySpace and listen to it on my iPod. To find out more about it, I started Googling the tracklist and found a few forums, finding more and more examples of producers and labels all involved in this music. And out of curiosity I listened to it and I was completely blown away by the tunes and the DJing. “One of them was Mixmag, and they had an Andy C mix CD on the cover. “I was doing my GCSE Media Studies, and I had to compare two music magazines,” he recalls. He’s been immersed in the genre since he was at school, long before its current period of critical and commercial resurgence – not, of course, that jungle’s ever really gone away. I think it’s good whether it lasts or not, I think you should make the most out of it.”Īs he says, Reaper has been doing this long enough to be able to take a longer-term perspective on jungle’s fortunes. But it does feel like a thing that goes in and out of fashion… I was doing this for the longest time, releasing these 12s and stuff, and suddenly there’s all these eyes on us. People who are usually more into techno and dubstep are taking an interest now. “It does feel like jungle’s having an ‘in’ period. A show on NTS radio, a smattering of press and some high-profile releases on well-respected labels like Lobster Theremin and frequent Radio 1 guest Sherelle’s new imprint Hooversound have exposed his work to listeners beyond the core jungle scene, something even this strikingly laidback guy seems (cautiously) excited about. Over the last few months, Reaper’s reputation has begun to grow pretty quickly. So I’m trying to negotiate maybe doing four days a week rather than five, because I could do with the extra day for travel and sorting out guest mixes and releases.” “It’s been okay for the past few years,” says Reaper, “but so far this year I’ve got a lot more bookings than usual. It’s fast, uncompromising, heavy jungle, with more than enough invention to breathe new life into the now-venerable genre.Īnyway, back to the spreadsheet, and the day job. To jungle heads, Reaper’s music is at once familiar, stacked with classic breaks and chopped vocals that surge and clatter with the refined ferocity of innovators like Goldie and Dillinja, and refreshingly modernistic, crammed with sideways lurches and sonic juxtapositions to distinguish him from the countless ’90s revivalists who have populated the crustier fringes of the drum and bass scene for years. One might not expect such an unassuming figure to moonlight as the visionary producer behind some of the UK’s most exciting new dance music but then, listening to his work as Tim Reaper, it’s not exactly clear who one would expect to be making this stuff. A softly-spoken twentysomething, he’s reserved but friendly, patiently talking me through the various commitments he’s got on this year, and how he’s negotiating a reduced-hours contract with his employer. On an overcast evening in the middle of an unusually chilly spring, an East London web developer called Ed is reading to me directly from a spreadsheet.
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