Today, we focus on one of the masterminds behind the current jungle effervescence.

Boss of the influential Future Retro London, collaborator with icons like Sully, Coco Bryce, or Fracture, incredible DJ behind the longest mix in Resident Advisor’s history (more than 7 hours and 250+ tracks!), Tim Reaper is a true heavyweight in the bass world.

Before hitting Paris on January 30, alongside Laze, Violet Indigo, and Hyperlison for our next WORMS event, we had a chat with him to discuss why he stopped his label, the current jungle revival, and his approach to production. The talk is complemented by an exquisite guest mix from the man himself.

Enjoy this new Adrenaline episode!

Hey Ed, how are you?

Not bad, currently working on my next Hyperdub release, hopefully to come out this year!

You’re often described as having an ‘archivist’ or ‘historian’ approach to production, having studied the genre’s DNA through old archives and forums. Does that deep knowledge ever make you feel trapped by the genre’s legacy, or does knowing the rules so well actually liberate you to break them?

I’d say I’ve swayed from one perspective to the other over the years, where I’ve wondered if the understanding of what oldskool jungle tunes “should” sound like is a great starting point for nailing the basic elements and being able to subvert the tropes rather than playing into them without knowing what’s already been done with them, or if it hinders creative ideas by deeming certain things as “incorrect” when in reality, it’s just an evolution of the formula. I think at the moment, there’s room for both approaches to render good end results, as much as that may come off like a cop out of an answer!

Jungle is often defined by its functional, repetitive loops. How do you inject a ‘story’ or a sense of progression into a track? Do you see the drum programming itself as the main narrative tool?

I think it can go multiple ways, either the drum programming in a track can intensify & progress throughout the track, with multiple dips & peaks, or it can serve as a rhythmic backbone to allow the musicality on top of the drums to be the main focus and create the story within the music. I really think it’s dependent on what the producer wants to make the main focal point/leading sound of their track, as that will most likely dictate what sets the narrative in the track.

With Sherelle, you’ve pushed back against the term ‘Jungle Renaissance’ because it implies the genre died. Yet, it is currently being (re)discovered by a new generation via many mediums, including TikTok and ‘PlayStation Jungle’ aesthetics. As someone who knows the deep history of this music, do you feel protective of its roots, or are you comfortable seeing the genre mutate into more “pop” forms?

I actually don’t mind the jungle renaissance term to be honest, because I remember there were a few years, around the time when I first started making jungle tracks inspired heavily by the oldskool sound. It wasn’t as popular as it is now. There weren’t as many DJs, events, producers, or labels involved in pushing the sound out to the people. So if I were to cut some slack in how the term is used, I would say that jungle renaissance doesn’t necessarily ignore the existence of the people that were representing the oldskool jungle sound, it just acknowledges that more people are doing it now, which I don’t think is something that can be argued.

But to actually answer the question, I’m not protective at all about what music may now be stemming from the roots of jungle, because as long as there’s still enough jungle made that I like being made and represented, I’m not too fussed about what else is going on, really. It all serves a purpose to different kinds of people, and other people based on their own backgrounds/leanings/influences are going to naturally take jungle elsewhere to other places, like the pop-influenced stuff and the video game soundtrack-influenced stuff. I think there’s room for it to all co-exist with the side of the scene that I’m involved in.

You recently paused your label, Future Retro London, having released over 90 projects within just 5 years. What were the reasons behind this move?

In all honesty, it was just a lot of work and admin that was stressing me out for a long time, and if I continued on, it would have potentially led to the quality of the output suffering as a result of my growing fatigue/disillusionment with running it. I did the majority of the tasks involved in the label and club night on my own, which included the A&R, the artwork (when I wasn’t bringing in guest designers), the finances, the social media, liaising with the distributors, manufacturers, club stuff, booking agents, handling the customer service so many other aspects that I’m probably forgetting right now.

It grew way faster than I imagined it would as well, which sort of didn’t necessarily prepare me for running it on my own at the level it grew to. Then it became quite hard to imagine bringing people in to do the things that needed to be done; instead of it being just me, I had no plan or interest in scaling Future Retro London into anything more than a one-person operation. It did a lot more than I ever could have fathomed it would in 5 years, and it was really hard keeping it all ticking on top of doing DJ bookings and releases as Tim Reaper, and also working a full-time day job as a web developer.

Has putting the label on a hiatus changed your headspace in the studio? Are you finding that it has impacted your own production process or the type of music you’re making now?

It’s allowed me more free time to somewhat have more “recreational” production time, which has led to me actually finishing tunes in other styles. Most of the time, I had for music production in the past had to be allocated to making music that was already scheduled/promised for release. There was rarely ever a time when I could make something just for the sake of it, which I now feel able to do.

In your Adrenaline guest mix, is there a track that carries a special meaning for you? Maybe a story behind it, or a moment that hit differently when you play it?

There’s a track in the mix called One Shot by me, Mantra & Decibella, forthcoming on a collaborative release we’ve done for Rupture, which is run by Double O & Mantra. That track was one that we made in 2024, but unfortunately, the project file was lost when I had my backpack stolen in Brussels a few months after. My computer was in that backpack, and I hadn’t backed up my files for a good few months, so that was one of many tracks of mine that was lost forever. But, because they had a render of the track when I sent it to them after the session, we had an audio recording of the file, which was able to be mastered for release, even though they wanted to make some changes to the track, but that was no longer an option, unfortunately!

On January 30th, you’re playing the WORMS night at Badaboum. Paris has a very distinct relationship with bass music compared to London. Do you pack your USB differently for a French crowd, or do you find that the ‘Jungle language’ is universal regardless of the city?

I rarely ever get booked to play in France, so I’ve not really been able to get too familiar with what style of jungle works the best with French crowds. So, I’ll be playing quite broadly in selection to gauge what gets the best reaction and then probably take it from there!