The samples of Calibre

We continue to learn about the sources of inspiration of jungle and drum‘n’bass musicians. Without any words, requests or greetings, the YouTube channel Original Jungle Samples tells us what kind of instruments and voices we hear in our favourite tracks. Today—Calibre. “I grew up in South Belfast. It was pretty much what you’d expect Belfast to be like during the troubles: very grim, frightening and full of twats. It wasn’t a very nice place to grow up. I’d say the first music I ever really fell in love with as a style was ska music, 80s pop, punk, reggae, soul, blues, musique concrète and ambient. Reggae was really important for me. It sounds a bit cheesy today, but I loved that period of reggae, with bands like UB 40 and The Specials, while there was punk and a political element going on as well. This was sort of Belfast-like; it seems like ideologies worked for me. But I got into a lot of that sort of music and from there, alternative indie, punk rock, heavy metal… you name it, anything at all, I was interested in it. And if there was something that was telling the establishment to go fuck itself then that was interesting to me too. I don’t want to admit to it but I was a wee bit like that.