{"id":1289,"date":"2026-02-07T00:15:05","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T00:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/?p=1289"},"modified":"2026-05-18T22:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T22:46:07","slug":"bass-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/bass-101\/","title":{"rendered":"Bass 101"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Bass 101<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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At risk of sounding esoteric, allow me to teach you about ‘Jungle” AKA “drum n’ bass” : They’re two names for the same thing: a deeply influential dance music genre that came out of Caribbean rave diasporas in the UK in the early 1990s, and has spent the last 30+ years constantly evolving, collaborating and maturing into a staple set of rhythms for Pop, dance, hip hop, jazz, dub, punk, metal, Reggae and other genres. At its core, the beat structure is most akin to hip hop. You can rap over it, but there is a second layer which is indebted to its roots as an island music: the bassline. A jungle bassline is always low, thick (or THICC,as the kids\/the intemet says) and funky, engineered to make you dance to jazz-soaked skittering high hats, breakbeats and complex snare drum roll patterns. And dance I have. Jungle is my favorite dance genre by a mile, with techno a close second (NYC, Chicago, Detroit, German, Dutch, pick your poison). I’ve torn up dance floors to jungle and techno both in a dozen countries in two continents as a devoted, unapologetic lifetime (30+ years!) raver. I just love how truly infinite the permutations of the core rhythmic structures of electronic dance music genres seem to be. The most singular of these snare patterns is known as the “Amen break”; in the words of Sri Lankan rapper MIA, “Get yourself an education.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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I’ve made three playlists exclusive to this book, one featuring the multiplicity of ways the Amen break has been interpreted\/duplicated over the years, one is a full-scope cross -section of the genre (and its\u2019 myriad of subgenres, from 90s \u201crollers\u201d, \u201cRagga & jump -up\u201d (see Aphrodite, Congo Natty , DJs Die & Zinc, in that order.) \u201ctech step\u201d (see Technical Itch & krust) \u201cdrill n\u2019bass\u201d (see Squarepusher & Shitmat), \u201cbreakcore\u201d (see Winnipeg’s iconic & chaotic Venetian Snares) to \u201cbig room\u201d vocal pop \/ arena rock crossover acts like Pendulum or Andy C. , and one is a bass -centric mix showing off the Dynamic range of the TR-808 (dance music \u2018s most essential bass synthesizer, where it Acts as the structural backbone for countless subgenres, from UK garage and reggaeton to pop, Balearic beach trance, to Detroit techno, to hiphop.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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The Amen break, explained:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/youtube.com\/shorts\/tB5q0v5V4MQ?si=d6SnNt371eG5GgpO<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Explained even deeper:<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DRkEdMVkVUx\/?igsh=ZGVnMTBkOHBzc2Fh<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

What makes something jungle? :<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DTAX74pDd2O\/?igsh=MWR2dDk1MzI1cWg2dQ==<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another bit of cultural context:<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DSkstW0CJup\/?igsh=bzlmbHZmN3FlOG8y<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

And more:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DQXAyy-AtaL\/?igsh=a2Q4YWZnNGFud3cx<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

My Amen Break playlist:\u00a0 : \u201cAMENNNNN\u201c<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/tidal.com\/playlist\/bf5d1c04-caeb-43d1-b9fc-b422e29867e2<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

My “big jungle stompers” playlist:<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/tidal.com\/playlist\/db820d56-81bc-4789-8eb5-d6c457357b1a<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bass Face: the playlist\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Songs to make the bass face to:<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/tidal.com\/playlist\/304d7597-ce49-4fc9-989f-4655f4651b92<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Some incredible polyrhythmic mixing skills at work here<\/span><\/p>\n

(Ask any DJ, jungle is notoriously hard to Mix)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DTlWZe7jDX9\/?igsh=MW02ZmQ0eWlvdDd3cQ==<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At risk of sounding esoteric, allow me to teach you about ‘Jungle” AKA “drum n’ bass” : They’re two names for the same thing: a deeply influential dance music genre that came out of Caribbean rave diasporas in the UK in the early 1990s, and has spent the last 30+ years constantly evolving, collaborating and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1289"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1903,"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1289\/revisions\/1903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}