Jungle drum & bass book All Crews to get reissue with accompanying audiobook and soundtrack

All Crews: Journeys through Jungle Drum and Bass Culture is getting a third update and reissue, accompanied by an audiobook for the first time.

Author Brian Belle-Fortune and publisher Velocity Press are hoping to give the audiobook an “authentic” soundtrack of jungle and drum and bass music, according to Mixmag. Velocity Press is running a competition to source these tracks, which must be unreleased and from producers who are not signed to a major label. Belle-Fortune hopes to include music across the spectrum of the enduring UK genres with a preference for productions light on vocals as to not conflict with the audiobook.

“It’s been over fifteen years since the last edition of All Crews, and since then Jungle Drum and Bass has truly gone global,” Belle-Fortune told Mixmag. “Since the scene has survived the rise of streaming, mass venue closures and pandemics, we decided the book deserved an update.”

“We want the updated edition of ‘All Crews’ to be accessible to as many heads as possible, so we’re also recording it as an audiobook. It only seems right to soundtrack the audiobook with the ruffest Jungle Drum and Bass tunes we can get our hands on and give up-and-coming producers the chance to hear their tracks in the audiobook.”

To enter, producers can email [email protected] with mp3s or a link to tracks on Soundcloud before 1st November. Selected producers will be featured in the third edition of ‘All Crews’ and be interviewed by Belle-Fortune. 

The first edition of All Crews, titled All Crew Muss Big Up, was published in 1999, with the second reissue landing in 2004 with the titled All Crews: Journeys Through Jungle. 

Dive into DJ Mag’s round-up of 11 essential books about electronic music here, and 10 jungle drum & bass documentaries to watch online here.

Photo credit: Velocity Press