Jungle duo Tom & Jerry and their samples

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—what the duo Tom & Jerry use to make their music. Once someone posted a question on Reddit: Why are the vast majority of second-hand vinyl records by Tom & Jerry sold for 100—200 dollars? They say that other jungle pioneers have less expensive records. The collector was quickly reminded of the context: the beginning of the 1990s, the rise of the genre, the label Reinforced at the peak of its form.

Tom & Jerry was a side project of Marco and Dego from 4hero, the founders of Reinforced. Together they went through all the stages in the development of jungle on their records: they made acid house, mixed breakbeat with techno, turned to hardcore, tried deep house and recorded soft jazzy drum‘n’bass. Cartoon records, however, seemed to be an attempt to create one-day hits, quickly recorded and printed. Despite this, many of them became dance floor classics during the jungle fever of 1993—1994 and weren’t reissued either on vinyl or digitally later.