After nearly a decade in dance music purgatory, drum & bass and jungle have gradually worked their way back into the spotlight. Throughout this process, few labels have proven more reliable than dBridge‘s Exit Records, and the imprint’s latest offering, the Loving Touch EP, comes from Fracture (a.k.a. Charlie Fieber), a veteran UK producer who also heads up a quality imprint of his own, Astrophonica, with partner and frequent collaborator Neptune. On the record’s title track, Fracture flips Ralphi Rosario’s and Xavier Gold’s house classic “You Used to Hold Me” into a hyperkinetic piece of drum & bass, while the remainder of the EP finds him working bits of footwork, grime, hip-hop, and dubstep into a jungle template. On a basic level, this sort of hybridization and creativity is at least partially responsible for the revitalization of drum & bass, and hearing these tunes left us curious about how the approach would work in an elongated format. As such, we invited Fracture to put together an exclusive mix for the XLR8R podcast series.

Right off the bat, the mix is brimming with energy. Drum & bass is a naturally hyperactive sound to begin with, but when infused with low-end-heavy blasts and frequent rhythmic change-ups, the music takes on a whole new vibrance. Over the course of nearly an hour, Fracture employs many of his own tracks—although many of these numbers are collaborative—but he also enlists the talents of like-minded jungle experimenters like Om Unit, DJ Spinn, and Addison Groove. It’s not a session for the faint of heart.

01 Taso “Lose You”
02 MP ­”U Dont Know Me” (MP)
03 Addison Groove “Masamune” (50Weapons)
04 Fracture “Bump 2 Dis”
05 Om Unit x Moresounds “Nuff Music” (Cosmic Bridge)
06 DJ Spinn “Dubby”
07 Fracture x Moresounds “Dead and Bury” (Astrophonica)
08 Fracture x DJ Spinn x Taso “Jam #1”
09 DJ Monita “Luv Ta Luv Ya (Fracture’s Astrophonica Remix)” (Skeleton)
10 Kid Lib “Soundmove” (Green Bay Wax)
11 Fracture “Loving Touch” ­(Exit)
12 Fracture x Sam Binga x Rider Shafique “Back It Up” (Astrophonica)
13 Fracture x Sam Binga ­”Grippin’ Grain” ­(Exit)
14 Fracture x Chimpo “From Early (Fracture’s Reduction Mix)” (Metalheadz)
15 Moresounds “Pure Niceness” (Astrophonica)
16 Overlook “Empires”
17 Great Dane “Invite Only” (Alpha Pup)
18 Fracture x Sam Binga x Rider Shafique “She Want It Ruff” (Astrophonica)
19 Fracture & Neptune “Whatever” (Astrophonica)
20 Moresounds “Rahstok”

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