Jungle/Drum 'n' Bass

Watch your head, what with all these beats ravaging the air like gunshots, testing the resilience of every ear canal in the club. The seemingly trigger-happy onslaught from the jungle and drum 'n' bass DJs can be relentless, but true fans will recognise that there's room for subtlety here: Warm up with Roni Size & Reprazent's jazz-flecked "Brown Paper Bag" or High Contrast's uplifting take on the genre, before soaking up the beat barrage in Next Steps.

Now that your heart's racing — as you try to keep up with the twists and sinew-snapping turns of tracks like "Dred Bass" — take the occasional time-out to admire the beauty of a perfectly mutilated and re-stitched sample . . . like Aphrodite's nifty meddling with Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" on "Old Spice", or E-Z Rollers' clever appropriation of a jazz flute break, which drifts over the bass of "Tough at the Top" like a whiff of aftershave. Follow the beats into Deep Cuts.

Here's where the true wizards of BPM cast their spells. Drum 'n' bass godfather Fabio gets to work on Everything But the Girl's "Blame" and instead of burying Tracey Thorn's vocal under an avalanche of beats, he somehow strengthens the track's emotional core by adding a stuttering heartbeat of snare. By contrast, the Adam F-V-Pendulum Music mix of Jem's "Just a Ride" locks us in a sonic tractor beam and pulls us into euphoric territory.

At the heart of this entire playlist's quickened pulse is the "Amen Break": a skittering, scampering drum loop lifted from the vintage kit of Gregory Cylvester Coleman for block-rocking rap and the hectic haze of jungle/drum 'n' bass. Listen past those strangely familiar four bars, however, and each track reveals a dystopia as dynamic as the future-shocked movie worlds of Spielberg and Lucas. Only one that's more human — a synthesis of drum machine and human inspiration, overseen by producers determined to inject their vibe with intensity and a mixed record bag of hardcore techno, leftfield samples, effervescent film scores, R&B, and dub.