u/revilorhino

i do like some Dean Blunt and i’m not coming here just to hate, but i feel like he’s massively overrated for the level of acclaim he gets.

“Galice” takes the emotional core of “Nubian Queen” and mostly loops it with some lo-fi tape-warp processing and different vocals over it. i say different vocals, but to me they’re pretty flat and closely follow the same vocal melody as the original song. and this seems to be a common blueprint for a lot of his music. “Smile Please” does something similar with John Frusciante’s “Outside Space”, and “Snakeman Freestyle” uses “He Got the Girl” by Marine Girls.

i’m not saying sampling has to involve 100 different chops or be technically complicated to be good. knowing exactly what section to take is obviously a real skill. but with a lot of his music, it feels like nearly all the soul and musical substance was already in the original recording. his main talent seems to be having amazing taste and knowing how to frame things, rather than being some amazing producer or composer.

i do really like Babyfather because it feels like he adds much more substance, identity and an actual world around the samples. but with some of his solo tracks i keep thinking: if an unknown SoundCloud artist looped the same section, added some lo-fi processing and sang over it, would people still call it genius?

when i found Dean Blunt and went down the rabbit hole, i already recognised a lot of the samples. because i knew some of the original artists and the context and emotion behind their music, i kept wondering what Dean was specifically adding that wasn’t already there.

i know a lot of people would say the vocals he adds are raw and vulnerable, but i’d recommend listening to John Frusciante’s Smile from the streets you hold to understand what i mean. that’s music made by someone who was genuinely in a horrific place and channelling addiction, isolation and instability directly into his performances. he even later said he released the album for drug money.

so genuinely, what do you think i’m missing? is it more about the wider context, lyrics, sequencing and persona, or do you think the production itself is genuinely exceptional? give me some tracks where you think he does something beyond having great sample taste.

at the moment i see him as kind of Rick Rubin style: great taste and direction, but not necessarily a technical producer or musical genius lol

Jungle is probably my favourite genre, but I’m also really into newer/weirder takes on it — stuff that pushes into IDM, breakcore, footwork, noise, hip-hop, hardcore, or more experimental electronic music. I know not everything here is strictly jungle, but a lot of it feels connected so I thought this would still be the best place to ask.

Some recommendations / examples of my taste:

Newer:
John Frusciante / Trickfinger — especially Maya, “Cymm Trace”, and “Amethblowl”
Baseck — “Hardcore Raw” / “Right Now”
Osheyack — “Angel Vector” but I fw all of his stuff
Dev/Null — “Dark Fours” / “Time 2 Rhyme”
3mperor Augustu5
Zulu — “Like This”
Pete Cannon — “Amphetamines”
Hopper1000 — “Zoom Bye Bye”
Millie & Andrea — “Drop the Vowels”
Tim Reaper & Dwarde
Luke Vibert — “Don’t Fuck Around”
Cardopusher — “Jamaican Tang”
Murder Most Foul
Fendi K
µ-Ziq — “Grape Nut Beats”
Kode9
Zatru — “Not a Love Crime”

Older/classic stuff:
Foul Play
Bay B Kane
Sedzy
Deep Blue
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Amen Andrews
Tight Control
DJ Pooch

I’m especially into tracks with properly chopped-up breaks, interesting edits, emotional or strange melodies, and a bit of roughness rather than something too polished. I like music that feels like it’s breaking new ground, even if it’s not strictly traditional jungle.

Would love any hidden gems, newer producers, labels, mixes, albums, or underrated tracks that jungle heads think I’d be into.