The first thing you hear is this totally crazed voice mixing any number of accents, slang words, everything -- there's an "all roight, mate!" in there somewhere, I know -- and what sounds like an aggro siren going off in the background. And then the bass and the beats kick, and do they ever.
This wasn't the first jungle collection, and it may not have all the notable early tracks. Oh, but does it kick, thrive, live, flow. The insane, wonderful counterpart to the slow-as-it-goes G-funk/Wu Tang visions dominating the universe around 1994, and while Timbaland may insist to his grave that he never listened to jungle before he launched his own various pop chart attacks, I think it's more accurate to say that he sensed that somebody had figured it out already, even if he didn't want to admit it. It's like knowing something is up.
Freed from a variety of attentions, though shortly about to fall prey to more than a few, with mainstreaming and 'intelligent' jungle soon to creep around and make everything stupid -- thanks for nothing, Squarepusher, now get stuffed -- this was when a bunch of characters just thought, "Hm! Wonder what happens if…" Heavy, heavy on the gangster/rude boy vibe, of course -- thus titles like "Original Gangsta," "Original Nuttah," "Hustling," "Heartless." The lyrical delivery is just plain brilliant as a result, guys with some of the most aggressively fun vocabs and ways around things vocally than most could ever dream of. You can hear the dancehall throughout, just like you can tell it's there from the dub bass moves and the drop-ins of shotguns and echo, like Lee Perry decided to swap the spliff for crank instead. He was probably laughing his head off the whole time, going, "Ah, finally!" So that's why you have Junior Dan going on about being heartless with a sweet-touched reggae backing at points even while the drums are going wonderfully nuts all around him.
So there's a lot of urban alienation here, and that whole trope is now codified. Urban jungle, struggle, staying one step ahead of capture, nothing per se new there. But it's the speed that is essential, because this isn't being cool and head-nodding, it's bolting forward. Reflection does not belong here, and there's no real point in big chants when the next sudden shift is around the corner. But the thing is that it's not all that, because then it wouldn't be fun. And fun is paramount. So that's why Bass Selective's "Blow Out Jungle VIP" has a great discosalsa piano line, synth strings and diva vocals slammed into it all. And even the opening speech for T. Power's "Elemental" about the 'beastman' from whatever campy old horror movie it's sampled from can't help but raise a smile even as the razor sharp drum cuts start up and the quite excellent synths and noises and things turn it into a strange tightrope-walk of music, clean and clinical without being dead.
And I think of the haunting, beautiful background samples on "Heaven n' Hell" from MC Olive n' Slam Collective, the buried pianos and wails behind the beats, and the goofily/angrily freaked out argument at the start of Shy FX/Gunsmoke's "Original Gangsta," and so much more. Music that could contain the universe that conservative rock jerks and self-righteous ambient types hated. Of course it is brilliant.