In this new era of electronic dance music, jungle music has forged itself as one of the hottest prospects within underground sounds. Its distinctive high-speed drum pattern, low-end b-lines and visionary synthesised sound designs have always been synonymous to jungle music. Naturally, there are a multitude of DJs and producers responsible for this seismic wave that this one-of-a-kind scene is currently experiencing. None more so than Ed Alloh, better known to jungle heads as Tim Reaper. His undeniable eclectic style has firmly cemented his place as one of the scene’s biggest names. This modern-day jungle sound has been pioneered by London-born Tim Reaper over the last decade. Over the course of this period, the likes of Nia Archives, Sherelle, Coco Bryce, Sully, and Dwarde, to name a few, have also assertively marked their stamp on the genre too.
It seems crazy that, until a short time ago, Tim Reaper was a web programmer by day and a top-draw jungle selector by night. Now he is working in music full-time there will undoubtedly be so much more he can achieve. The sheer graft he has shown throughout his musical tenure has been highly commended and evident for everyone to see. He has relentlessly run a number of projects not only as an artist but as a record label owner too. As a result of a variety of electronic influences, he has been able to connect the dots between old-school 90’s jungle and more futuristic sounds – using his drum & bass background to marry the pair up sonically. Leading this new era of jungle is no mean feat, especially with the scene’s remarkable surge in popularity amongst electronic dance music fans.
There was a time where you’d struggle to catch more than one jungle night in a month. Fast forward to now Tim Reaper gets booked several times a week, performing at a wide range of underground events up and down the country – as well as around Europe. His label ‘Future Retro London’ is the embodiment of the whole jungle community, showcasing worldwide talent – supplementing the already euphoric feel around the scene. First intended as an events brand, ‘Future Retro London’ has become a powerhouse label in its field, with many accolades that include winning DJ Mag’s ‘Best of British’ breakthrough label award in 2021. Looking ahead to the abundance of production forthcoming on the label we can expect some more high-quality jungle in 2024.
For the good of the surrounding culture, it’s clear that Tim Reaper will always put junglists first. Undoubtedly, he will go down as one of the very best to grace the jungle genre. His fascinating journey within the community has been achieved through intrinsic motivation and dedication. His unique take, through his work as a world-class producer as well as a successful label owner, gives us an insight very few can provide. Having gone from learning about jungle via online forums to becoming one of the great selectors of our generation, we wanted to learn more about this exceptional underground curator raised in East London.
With such a dynamic career over the last decade, we’re all interested to know what influenced you growing up?
Before I properly got into jungle and drum & bass music, I was very much into watching music videos on TV channels like The Box, MTV Base, MTV Dance, and Channel U which used to show loads of UK hip-hop and grime. For a while, this was the type of music I was into until I had to do this assignment for my Media Studies GCSE where I had to write an essay comparing two different music magazines, and one of the magazines I got was Mixmag. This had an Andy C mix CD on the cover. Out of curiosity, I decided to listen to it and wow! The energy of the mix was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. I couldn’t even process it. Combined with his mixing ability, it was this seamless type of experience that blew my mind. I was about 15 at the time, and I knew that whatever this was I needed to find out as much as I could about it.
Your Tim Reaper alias is focused on jungle, so when did this start to become a passion?
It definitely started when I found out about jungle, more so than drum & bass. At the start, I was listening to a lot of ‘RAM’, ‘Exit Records’, ‘Critical’, ‘Shogun’, ‘Hospital Records’, and many other drum & bass labels. At the time, I used to get a lot of my music from ripping it off MySpace profiles of artists I knew of and there was a fake profile of someone pretending to be DJ Hype, which had two tunes uploaded to it, ‘Dred Bass’ and ‘Super Sharp Shooter’. I found myself repeatedly listening to these tracks more so than any other drum & bass tune. They were a lot more different sounding to the usual drum & bass that I was exposed to and it prompted me to ask questions about it on forums that I was actively on. With help, I was able to work out that there was a preceding genre of drum & bass that came before it called jungle. Once I found this out, I started looking up labels such as ‘Suburban Base’, ‘Moving Shadow’, ‘Reinforced’, early ‘Metalheadz’ and loads of other labels like these. My interest in jungle gave me the drive to want to start trying to make this type of music and I was just very keen to learn anything I could.
You’re unquestionably one of a number of names at the forefront of this new jungle movement. What’s your view been on this jungle hysteria that’s undeniably brought new fans to the scene?
It’s been very surprising how much it’s grown! It was literally just in December where Nia Archives had sold out her event at Warehouse Project, in Manchester, having thousands of people sing along to her tunes, with a whole room dedicated to jungle – which I was lucky enough to play at. Then on the same night, Sully and Sherelle were playing jungle to a packed room at Drumsheds in London, you had Mantra playing at Valve, there was a sold-out ‘Rupture’ event as they were celebrating their 17th Birthday, and Dwarde was playing the ‘Hoover Sound’ night in Bristol. This was all in one night! Back in the day, when I was getting into jungle in the early 2010s, if there was one jungle event taking place, the chances of there being any other jungle event on the same night was just impossible. If you wanted to go out on a random weekend and listen to some jungle it wasn’t going to happen for you. You knew if you had an event coming up in a few months time, that would be your fix. Now, you can go out and hear it anywhere and everywhere. I didn’t feel like we’d ever get to this point. Especially because I feel like none of us jungle producers have had to tailor our music to the mainstream audience.
People like Sherelle and Nia Archives have been able to tap into different demographics, giving jungle a more diverse face. It’s far more accessible now. It’s not just vinyl only releases; you’ll be able to stumble across jungle far easier via streaming services etc. Also, a lot of us are playing all over the country & internationally, so it’s far easier for people who are going out to hear it randomly on a night out.
And with this new wave, I’d say your contribution has been one of the stand outs since you started in the scene.
Thanks! Well my first vinyl release was 2011, but in the last 5 years my output has become a lot higher – I’ve been putting out multiple releases per year. It’s only in the last 2 years that I’ve been getting bookings for shows at a consistent rate, coinciding with the end of lockdown – where jungle has experienced a surge in popularity. My numbers in 2023 have been my highest, I put out about 45 releases and played at around 70 shows all over the world. ‘Future Retro London’, the label I run, has put out 33 releases in that same year too.
Now you mention your label ‘Future Retro London’, tell me about how that’s played its part in the current jungle movement…
I didn’t feel like there was a brand that specifically represented the full scene of “new school” jungle producers. The ones I knew would also include other styles & genres, but I wasn’t aware of anything running with the ethos that I had in mind. When you find out about ‘Future Retro London’, you find out about 70+ artists at once. I wanted to build a reference point, showcasing as many different names in our scene as possible – rather than just constantly picking from a small pool/clique of artists. I wanted to make it as broad as possible in all aspects. With our events, we have artists flying in from different parts of the world to play on a ‘Future Retro’ night & being able to give DJs who don’t often get booked a platform to play their music is what it’s all about for me. ‘Future Retro London’ is all about putting people on the map & it’s really nice to be able to give those artists who have never released on vinyl, or had one of their tunes played on national radio, a stepping stone towards feeling more cemented in the scene – and more of a confidence boost. Hopefully, when working with me, it’ll spur them on to keep going & continue to progress onwards with their music.
So how did ‘Future Retro London’ form?
First and foremost, ‘Future Retro London’ was about the club nights, bringing events to everyone. I intended that further down the line, it could become a record label but that wasn’t an imminent plan. However, due to lockdown measures, the first ‘Future Retro London’ event had to be postponed, which stalled me from being able to get things going. During lockdown though, I had this idea for a series of collaborative releases where I’d hit up producers I know, work on a track with them, and then put it all together in one body of work. I was unable to think of any label I was currently working with at the time that would allow me complete creative control to implement this concept in the way I wanted. I thought that until I could put together my first event, I would start the label side of things. Hoping that it would keep the brand relevant till such a time the first club night could happen. This is how the ‘Meeting of the Minds’ series began.
With so many projects on ‘Future Retro’, is it possible to take me through some of your standouts of 2023?
I was quite amazed we got ‘Synergy’ done. That was the joint collaboration EP between myself, Sully, Dwarde, and Coco Bryce. We did the ‘Synergy’ tune together and then did our own remixes that made up the EP. I did a joint label release with ‘Skeleton Recordings’ which I was very happy with, especially because I wasn’t sure if we would be able to get it over the line since I knew that Monita who runs ‘Skeleton Recordings’ was no longer involved in music, but I’m really grateful to him for allowing this release to happen. Then there was another joint release I did with a label based in Sheffield called ‘The Holy Chalice’. When I was in Sheffield for No Bounds Festival, I met up with Alex who runs the label and he was telling me that he had these two tracks from the Chalice Crew that didn’t have any imminent release dates, so I proposed to take them on and get some remixes done with them too – creating another exciting project. And it was the same way with the ‘Green Bay Wax’ collaboration, which also did really well. It was nice because ‘Green Bay Wax’ haven’t put that much out on vinyl recently, so I was happy to get that one sorted as being involved with them was a very key part of my growth as a producer & I have a lot of love for Kid Lib who runs it.
A personal favourite was the Phineus II eight-tracker which I was glad to be able to put together. One of the best sellers this year was a tune called ‘Dream’ by Harmony. He’d sent me the beginnings of it and I knew, straight away, that I needed to make sure he finished it because I felt like there was something special about it – it’s been one of my most played tunes ever in DJ sets. The power of that tune when it drops is amazing. Finally, there was the collaborative release with Sully’s label, ‘Uncertain Hour’. The thing with that Fader mix of ‘Windswept’ by Sully was that there was never really any intention to release it. Apart from the cool intro that he had done, I felt it sounded a bit too similar to the original version – so I wasn’t too fussed about releasing it. But because me, him & a few others were playing it out in sets, I had so many people asking me about it nonstop. In the end, we decided to put it out and now we can look back on it being the label’s best-selling release of 2023 – which I definitely wasn’t expecting.
Can you tell me about any future projects the ‘Future Retro London’ label has coming up?
Yes, so there’ll be more ‘Meeting of the Minds’ releases coming out for sure. There are also some really wicked releases coming from Nectax, Ontology, Submerse, Artificial Red, Kid Drama (as Ocean Dawn), and so many more fresh talented producers with cool projects on the label this year. Last year was a full on year in terms of touring at a level I was not used to, the amount of admin that came from running the label & club night, making my own music for myself and other labels, whilst also working a full-time job. With a bit more time this year, I should be able to get these new releases up and running. I definitely want to switch it up a bit too, I don’t want to just rely on the same names to release on ‘Future Retro London’. I want to keep the style of the label more diverse too. I’ll definitely be shouting different producers.
Talk to me about some of your favourite releases this year, away from the label.
I had an EP called ‘The Cosmic Connection Vol.3’ out on a label called ‘Unknown to the Unknown’ which is usually a techno label so I was really surprised to see how well it did. Me and Dwarde brought back ‘Globex Corp’ which is a series of The Simpsons themed releases on the ‘Globex Corp Black’ label. We’ve got another one coming this year. Me and Dwarde also have released together on other labels throughout 2023 like ‘Rupture’, ‘Creative Wax’, ‘Suburban Base’, and a few other platforms. Most of the other releases I’ve had in 2023 are compilation features and remixes. Because I’ve been travelling so much for gigs, it’s been hard to organise releases for labels other than mine
You’ve worked with a lot of producers over your long career. Talk to me about some of your favourite artists to link up with and also ones you’re admiring in the scene currently.
I’ve got my usual lot that I love playing and collaborating with. Artists like; Dwarde, Coco Bryce, Sully, Equinox, Mantra, Harmony, Dev/Null, Ricky Force, and FFF. They’re my reliables. Big names in jungle. In terms of new names, DJ Sofa is doing some really great stuff at the moment. We’ve got some cool stuff coming from her next year on the label. There are these two producers from the U.S called Soulox and Soeneido. I had an EP out from them towards the end of last year that was great. A guy from Germany called DJ Chromz, he’s making some wicked ragga jungle type tracks. Then there’s also these two producers from Bristol called Janaway and Cheetah, I’d slept on them for a bit, but once I started investigating their tunes I realised their talent. I’ve got them doing some remix work for me next year so I look forward to that.
It was a phenomenal year for jungle in 2023, and with that an amazing year for yourself as one of the pioneers of this new school jungle sound. There must be some amazing highlights…
Thank you! There definitely was. The first one that comes to mind is the big B4B tour with myself, Coco Bryce, Sully, and Dwarde. We played at Boomtown last year & I knew we were meant to be playing a bigger stage than in previous years, but I didn’t realise it was going to be the main stage. Playing to what must have been over 10,000 people was mental. It was just an unreal experience. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go down as it was a full day of drum & bass that day, so we didn’t know how some old-school jungle would sit with the crowd – it seemed to be received quite well. This year was the first year I went to ‘Outlook Festival’. I’d heard so much about it, and it was just really cool. It was part of the tour with Dwarde, Coco, and Sully. I also got to do ‘We Out Here’ festival – there was a ‘Rupture’ takeover stage so I was invited to play. Dimensions in Croatia was another wicked festival abroad. There weren’t many jungle acts there, so it was really cool being one of the representatives for the scene. ‘Sun & Bass’ was also an amazing overseas festival to play at. It’s in Sardinia and I’d go again regardless of whether I’m playing or not. Ending the year at Warehouse Project for Nia’s event ‘Up Ya Archives’ was unreal. A full jungle takeover in such a big space shows how far jungle has come.
Talk me through the vinyl side of your DJing, it’s a part of your selection a lot of your fans love to see.
During lockdown, I started buying vinyl because for a long time, I couldn’t afford it or justify the amount of space that a vinyl collection would take up, plus I never owned any turntables so I was usually dependent on any mates I knew that had them. I had a small collection of records before lockdown but most of it was my own releases and releases I was given by mates. But starting ‘Future Retro’, I needed to be able to check test presses at home, so I sorted a setup out for myself and then became addicted to buying all the tunes I knew and loved. Over time, with a lot of practice, I managed to become somewhat sufficient at mixing on vinyl. Louise and Simon, who run ‘Distant Planet’ were gracious enough to involve me in their events which are vinyl only. It’s great because when I play vinyl I can showcase a different side of my selection, where it’s more about showcasing some of my favourite 90’s tunes, rather than playing my stuff or playing what’s on my label. There’s more effort involved and concentration levels have to be higher. ‘Distant Planet’ and ‘Rupture’ always have their vinyl setups good, so I’m always happy to do vinyl sets for them.
With loads of bookings under your belt, you must have some favourite venues and places you want to shout out…
I might be biased for saying this but they’re both London venues- Peckham Audio and Venue MOT – they are my go-to spaces. They just nail it without fail. It’s everything you could want from a space. Both venues are always so enjoyable. Also, when ‘Rupture’ throws their nights at Corsica Studios it’s unbeatable. I’ve been going to them for a long time. Still to this day they’re my favourite events. Bristol and Manchester as locations are great to play in. Both have strong jungle scenes.
So what can we expect from Tim Reaper next?
‘Future Retro London’ has 20+ releases that are in pending status, covering all sorts of projects and styles. Releasing the first album on the label will be happening very soon too. I’ve also got an album I’m personally working on, which I’ll be giving my full attention to this year. There’s so much that I want to do as a label owner, club promoter, and producer. Now I’m in music full-time, I feel I’ll be able to fully focus on all of this, and actually have some time to myself too.
Follow Tim Reaper: Soundcloud
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