Skins continues forging his own path with a new label celebrating the uplifting and futuristic sounds of jungle, with a four-tracker featuring tracks with early support from DJs at the leading edge of the new wave of jungle such as Tañ, Mixtress and Frazer Ray through to revered names like Paul Rhodes of 2 Bad Mice.
Whilst some will know Skins from his run of self-released white label techno EPs or 2021’s underground hit 24 Hour Dub, more recently he has turned his attention back to the music which made him fall in love with it all in the first place:
“I vividly remember the effect that the futuristic sounds of 90s jungle and drum ‘n’ bass had on me as a kid, hearing snippets of tracks in video games and later stumbling across artists like Alaska, Future Engineers, Seba, Peshay and LTJ Bukem. After years engrossing myself in the cavernous spaces of dub techno, this record feels like a return to my roots, bringing my style into a new arena which still feels like home. The label will serve as an outlet for this and future collaborations with like-minded producers.”
Route R is the second track from the forthcoming inaugural release on Skins’ new project Sauce Direct Records. The label is set to draw from the sounds and energy of classic jungle, with an emphasis on colour, excitement and most importantly, fun.
The track opens with a pulsing, sparse and echo-laden drum pattern, which slowly fills out and is joined by an arpeggiated synth line pulling us along to the breakbeat section. From here we travel deeper, driven forwards by a powerful undulating bassline, until we are greeted by uplifting pads and layers of rich, emotionally charged harmonies.
After a brief moment lost in space, we are plunged back into the bass and breakbeat groove for a few more minutes of heads-down action, before a familiar synthesiser line brings us back home, from which we set off, but somehow different…
A portion of sales revenue and any profit will go to http://safeline.org.uk
