Various ArtistsRinse:20 – Mixed by Uncle DugsReview

History lessons used to be boring. Fact. But this rigorous rhythmic examination of the genealogy of jungle and hardcore is thrilling throughout.

Veteran DJ Uncle Dugs was the station manager of legendary pirate radio station Rinse FM from 1999 till 2005; it was under his watch that we witnessed jungle eventually mutate into grime and dubstep.

But jungle has remained this man’s mistress. Launching his 21-track expose of his scene’s dancefloor trig points with Lennie de Ice’s We Are i.e., he drops us into an unrelenting hour of breakbeats, jump-up attitude and the odd main-room slayer. Amongst these heavy-hitters: Zinc’s remix of Ready or Not by Fugees, this mix’s final resting place.

Jungle was a distinctly mongrel genre. As old-school Jamaican echoes met British chameleonic rave taste, we heard a stramash of pitched-up hip hop loops, acid house whimsy, ragga toasting, reggae’s essence and splashes of sound-system soul. And here Uncle Dugs turns teacher to present his pulsating artefact of influence and development.

Bizarrely, if this DJ had released this mix in 2005 as he went on Rinse hiatus, it would’ve sounded like nothing but thundering nostalgia before passing noisily into the night. But in 2012, with Rinse a global brand of taste-making verve and dubstep having ignited America’s love affair with dance music, this "Story of Jungle" mix is a monumental signpost pointing back through a tangled bloodline in bass culture.

Zig-zagging through career highs from Origin Unknown, Slipmatt, Andy C and the evergreen Shy FX, one can palpably hear the cleaner and sharper style of drum’n’bass calling for a split. Remember the horrendous coffee-table plundering of jungle into so-called "intelligent drum’n’bass"? Well, that pious journalistic joke doesn’t get a look in here, as Dugs keeps his head down and his serious breaks rolling raw.

As America finally embraces dance music in national dialogue and contemporaneously chooses dubstep as its surrogate son, deep listening here reveals clearly how many Skrillex-sponsored EDM raves could never have happened without these anthems ricocheting around east London’s grimy interior, under the hardcore frown of old Uncle Dugs.