Celebrated New York junglist
DJ Soul Slinger put together this continuous mix program in 1998, at a time when jungle was in serious need of some fresh ideas. Although
Upload suffers from some of the excesses typical of the period (notice that it offers not one, but two prelude tracks), it also keeps things interesting by varying the moods, grooves, and textures to a degree unusual in jungle compilations. "Jungle Sky Prelude" is a strutting midtempo funk groove that draws on elements from a number of previous Jungle Sky releases, incorporating soulful female vocals, a reggae dancehall DJ, the surf guitar motif from
the B-52's' "Rock Lobster," and various other snippets and samples, creating a pastiche that works in much the same way as an overture to a musical. By the time he starts to run other artists' recordings through his junglist transmogrifier,
DJ Soul Slinger sounds well warmed up: He gives DJ Ming + FS' "Face Down" a tastefully aggressive breakbeat treatment, and does similar things to several contributions from labelmate
1.8.7. But most interesting of all are his jungle arrangements of a couple of Brazilian numbers, in which he amps up some sampled Bahian drum sounds to a fever pitch and adds his own tweakages to create one of the more unique jungle sounds to emerge from the late '90s. Highly recommended overall. ~ Rick Anderson