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🌴🎧️Genre #2: Intelligent Jungle DnB

🌴🎧️Genre #2: Intelligent Jungle DnB

The soundtrack to the very best in retro gaming 🕹️👾

Daniel Hoadley
January 21, 2025

Welcome to Genre Safari

Lots of great feedback from the last edition. Glad you liked it! If you missed it, here’s the last post 👉️ Genre Safari #1

This edition is perhaps a little more well-known than Skweee, but still, if you’re of a certain age, you may have no idea this type of music exists.

Hope you enjoy the Safari 🌴 🎧️

Inception: Circa 1994

Origin: U.K

Image source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twBcMibg1Vs&ab_channel=Camaz

Well, it wouldn’t be a safari without a bit of jungle, would it?

If your YouTube algorithm has a thing for music, you’ve probably seen those long mixes popping up, complete with retro gaming backdrops like PlayStation 1, Sega, or N64. They’re a nostalgic treat if you grew up in that era.

But what’s the connection between this music and those old-school games?

Enter Intelligent Jungle (sometimes known as Ambient or Atmospheric Jungle), a 90s subgenre that reworked the gritty energy of jungle drum and bass into something smoother and more soulful. Artists like LTJ Bukem and Omni Trio shifted the sound, trading the dark Jungle sounds for melodic journeys packed with jazz riffs, ambient textures, and intricate rhythms.

With the ’90s bringing us incredible game consoles like the PS1, capable of playing CD-quality music, it’s only natural that some game designers leaned towards Intelligent Jungle to fill their soundtracks. This is why you may remember fighting games like Tekken featuring these types of beats, along with “futuristic” racing games like Wipeout and Gran Turismo following suit.

Nowadays, it’s making a decent resurgence, especially with its metronome-like beats that help many focus during long study sessions or remote working.

Intelligent Jungle shows how rhythm and atmosphere can coexist, softening the hardest beats without losing their edge.

Well, if this doesn’t slap, I don’t know what does. As an avid retro gamer (both then and now) some of these tracks take me straight back to watching family members play PS1 classics.

Soulful, energetic, and packed with a bass that hits you square in the face.

As a remote worker, I decided to stick this on in the background for the past hour, and let me tell you, it’s been an interesting experience. The first 10 minutes? I was so engrossed in the music I barely got anything done. But fast forward an hour, and I’ve managed to power through my workload like never before.

I owe it all to Intelligent Jungle Drum and Bass.