What was really exciting about the whole surprise of "DB into jungle!" thing was that Bailey had discovered jungle by accident, just through stumbling on the pirates while scrolling down the radio dial, and there was the mind blowing revelation that he liked to jam with the ruff 'n' rugged choppage coming out the speakers.
Well, someone's only gone and found a cassette of him doing exactly that! And they've put it out (at a name-yer-price rate). Hat tip to Jon Dale for alerting to me this archival gem - wittily titled Domestic Jungle.
Here's the Scatter Archive release rationale from Bandcamp, which starts with the same Stefan Jaworzyn interview transcript that I used in my blogpost :
DB plays with radio for a while - horrible noise drowns out our voices on the tape)
"The station's not there now - usually they've started by 5.30... They've no announcements - when they go off it just stops, when they come on it just blasts in... It's enormously loud - I get it accidentally sometimes when I'm just fucking about.
"So I've been listening to it, and I really like the way they do it on the radio - I have to say that in recent times it seems to have got softer, a lot less abrasive in some ways. There are more vocal samples, for example... But what I like about the radio is the live quality - although the stuff is records, they don't leave them alone - they'll talk over them, advertise gigs, order a pizza - the music's constant but with interruptions. It's very live - and with that sustained pace, which of course is inhuman... And it's nice to play along with, particularly as opposed to free jazz situations where the pace is often very slow.
"I've found it fantastic to practice with. So for a long time I've been doing that...
:I've always liked the parts where the music stops and drifts along - you get some ridiculous string orchestra, then it just slips a bit, the pitch goes or they slow it down or something. Then the drums come back - it's completely meaningless! I like that...
"What is a pain and can sometimes dilute it is the repetitive - looped or sampled - vocals... The funny thing is, I've never heard a jungle record, all I've heard has been off the radio..." Derek Bailey [talking to Stefan Jaworzyn]
these are private home recordings which were copied (on Derek's frequently idiosyncratic cassette duplicator) and posted out to interested individuals
except for tracks 08 and 09, which were originally released on David Toop's compilation "Guitars on Mars" [1997], the collection here comes from two different tapes and the sound quality is [inevitably] wildly variable, but does allow a fascinating and valuable historical insight into a particular period of Derek's domestic practice routine
audio restoration by Jim McEwan
with thanks to Karen Brookman, David Toop and Stefan Jaworzyn
^^^^^^^^^^^^
How funny that Bailey doesn't care for the ambient jungle / artcore drift into musicality - "I have to say that in recent times it seems to have got softer, a lot less abrasive in some ways. There are more vocal samples, for example... What is a pain and can sometimes dilute it is the repetitive - looped or sampled - vocals".
He prefers it ruff and rugged.
Also likes the MC element - the random everyday demotic banter and nonsense
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