Blow the Circuit

One of the most pernicious narratives about jungle and drum’n’bass, which set in early, is the habit of dividing the “intelligent” stuff from the supposedly edgier dancehall-influenced side — and worse, casting the former as less authentic and creatively valid. Of course, the entire catalogue of Reinforced records gives the lie to that idea, and never more so than on the releases by Cold Mission, a lesser-known alias of 4Hero. Over a trio of EPs through 1994 and into ’95, compiled on this 2010 album, they stripped jungle to a breakbeat skeleton, displaying its rhythmic sophistication, letting soul-jazz and Detroit techno chords float through — yet this was just as tough and in tune with dancehall sensibilities as any more obvious tear-out track of the time.