Entering a new year of music, we must recognise the labels that are doing relentless work to enhance our underground scene. None more so than Motive Hunter Audio, a recently developed jungle label, who are attacking the new year with some major releases from Nectax, Dwarde, and Tim Reaper. An inspired year of releases in 2023 from up-and-coming talents such as Toby Ross, Diagnostix, Two Toke, and Blake has laid the foundations for Motive Hunter to kick on in 2024. Despite the involvement of acclaimed artists, Motive Hunter’s ethos is to push new budding talent within the jungle community, throwing them into the mix with more established producers, which will only help their development in the long run.

The wider jungle scene is currently experiencing a feverish rise, which wouldn’t be possible without the exertions of labels like Motive Hunter. This new school jungle sound, that is the current craze amongst electronic heads, is heavily promoted by the brand. With future releases coming up from fresh producers including; Arykn, DJ B, Syntax, Worsleyy, Cheetah, Ac1d Vicious, Fez the Kid and Bruk – we can expect more cutting-edge digital sounds that will be sure to create even more excitement around this grassroots label.

Looking at their imminent upcoming releases, Nectax presents his ‘Playtime Is Over’ EP which is due on January 12 – providing us with a body of new school flavours that push the limits on jungle sound design. Accompanying three dynamic Nectax tracks on the EP is an energetic remix by Dwarde full of amen breaks and hefty drum patterns. Nectax has, undeniably, created a project with futuristic embodiment, whilst maintaining an essence of old-school jungle rhythm that has made this EP, already, so sought after within the community. Nectax was delighted with the whole process, stating “I’m quite happy with how coherent this EP turned out despite the tunes being made at completely different times. I think the oldest track on the EP is actually ‘Playtime Is Over’, which I did a couple of years ago now! Dwarde’s remix, on the contrary, is pretty much fresh off the press – he smashed that remix though, it brings a warm but gritty edge to wrap up the EP nicely”. 

Forthcoming the following month, on February 2, Motive Hunter has a remix release by Tim Reaper, one of the top names in the jungle game. This rework is of the zestful Fendi-K and OS:MAN track ‘Total 90’. This two-tracker will be sure to make football fans feel nostalgic with Eric Cantona’s voice sampled before the second round of drum work initiates.

With these milestone releases guaranteed to create more traction for Motive Hunter Audio, It was only right we spoke to the head honcho of the label. Jake Osman aka OS:MAN has independently steered the Motive Hunter ship from its inception. It’s selfless and dedicated owners like Jake who are unquestionably nourishing the new jungle movement. We wanted to find out more about how he took Motive Hunter from a Facebook group to a music label that has big releases on the way.

Before we look into the huge EP releases you’ve got coming up, let’s briefly talk about how Motive Hunter started.

So Motive Hunter started out as what it sounds like. It was a Facebook group where you would basically ‘hunt for a motive’, it was a community-led group which had a lot of involvement at the beginning. During lockdown, I started releasing guest mixes to get the brand more known, and to help push my mates DJing. Then after that followed some merch – there were these jackets we made that got really popular. Artists such as GLXY, Oneman, and AC13 were some of the artists we seeded them to at the time. Coming out the other side of lockdown, we had a link at The Cause who offered us a date to do an all-day socially distanced event. Just before this, we worked on releasing a two-track single, with a producer called Fleekee, as I also wanted to put something together as a label, on top of the events side of things. I thought this would make the brand stronger in the long run, whilst also giving a platform for my friends to release on. We sold out both rooms at our first event at The Cause, so we carried on getting shows there. Once it was clear we had a bit of pull, we were given the opportunity to have a regular night there collaborating with ‘Modern Funktion’ coming together to create ‘Worlds Collide’ – where we had Chase & Status headline the first event. In time, Motive Hunter’s direction changed from drum & bass to Jungle over the last 3 years, in sync with how my music taste has changed.

You touch on the direction changing from drum & bass to Jungle. The label releases clearly demonstrate this. How was dealing with that change at first?

I’ve always curated Motive to my taste, as I’m in charge of every aspect of the label from the artwork to the A&R, to the distribution and more. Going into Jungle, I quickly found out how friendly everyone was. The whole scene is very accessible if you want it to be. If you go in with good intentions it’ll work out, the love for the music, as the main incentive, is very apparent in the majority of people in most Jungle dances. Naturally, over the years you get to know people in the scene, and as a regular event goer, you become part of the furniture quickly. 

 What have been some highlights for the label?

Having Nectax and Dwarde on an EP has to be the biggest highlight for us so far! Celebrating that at Planet Wax on January 11, the evening before its release. We had some incredible artists playing on the night with some wicked B2B sets. I’d also say a highlight would be the moment of realisation that people actually do want to release on Motive Hunter. Since November I’ve gotten around five new artists messaging me a week with demos, asking if they can release on the label. It might not seem like a big thing but for us, it’s what it’s all about. In the past, we’d have that many artists messaging over three months. It really does make this all feel worthwhile. Just knowing that people are seeing what I’m doing and recognising it is just such a nice feeling.

Amazing! Let’s talk about some of the Motive Hunter releases over 2023, I know it was your most active year yet.

It definitely was! A big one for us was the two-tracker with Toby Ross. It was probably the easiest back-and-forth between myself and an artist, he’s such a great producer! He hit us up saying he loved what we were doing with the label and that he was also beginning to push a new sound. He sent two tracks over shortly after as demos and they were the ones we put out, easy job, back of the net. Wicked release.

Got to give a massive shout-out to Blake and his six-track EP – “Brainstorm”. Such an incredible release. We sampled bits from this 1983 sci-fi film with the same title and made the promotional material from clips taken from the film. It really helped visualise the tracks. It was the first proper project he’s put out. It’s what I love about Motive Hunter, we’re able to give unknown, talented, producers the chance to have a release that looks really professional. I feel like it sets them up nicely moving forward.

This was released in 2022 but another one that pops to mind is the Two Toke four-track EP called ‘Cardinal Direction’. That was a really cool one, and I had a lot of fun conceptualising this with Two Toke. We tried to designate each track to an area of London. We had four tracks and we placed one in each corner of London – North, South, East, and West. I thought this was a really wicked concept, that sonically worked really well. We’ve got some exciting releases for 2024 with some great producers, both established and up-and-coming, I honestly cannot wait for everyone to hear.

Moving us nicely onto the big release! The Nectax EP ‘Playtime Is Over’, with a big remix from Dwarde on the B-Side. How was organising this one?

Me and Nectax started chatting online earlier this year, we bonded over entering the jungle fray at a similar time from drum & bass. He sent me some demos for me to listen to, as he knew I was very keen to have a release from him. We picked our three favourites and went ahead with the project. It took a while to get some samples cleared, but it was worth it! So we had three tracks ready, but we needed one more track to complete the EP. We agreed that it would be great to add a remix for the B-side. We floated the idea of getting Dwarde to do a remix, and Nectax was completely on board with this as he was a fan of his stuff. Once we got Dwarde to agree we eventually had the four tracks ready to go. The entire EP has already been doing the rounds in the jungle community. Seeing Nia Archives shout out Nectax and play one of the tracks on the EP ‘Droid 94’ on The Lot Radio in New York was unreal. This EP release has been a really nice journey, we’ve grown a lot as a label – and myself as a label manager. Having two established producers, who were very enthusiastic to be involved from the get-go, is a really rewarding process to be involved in. It really is perfect though, as you have Nectax who is killing it at the moment, cutting into the scene. While Dwarde has been pioneering the new school jungle sound for many years – it’s a collaboration that makes so much sense. 

How about the two-track release with yourself and Fendi-K, containing the Tim Reaper remix. How was it putting that one together?

Fendi-K & I sat down this time last year and made a jungle tekno track. Once we came up with the idea to call it ‘Total 90’ (shoutout to Insectcrusha for the through-ball on that) I went into a research sample dive finding Nike and Joga Bonito samples to use. When we started playing it out in sets we realised it was good enough to potentially release. To release it on Motive Hunter we knew we were going to need another track to go alongside it as a small project. In this case, we agreed we wanted to find someone to remix it. Fendi-K knew who I was thinking of straight away. So I approached Tim Reaper – he listened to the track and was on board. The remix has three parts to it, giving the track a new life, whilst keeping the inspiration of the ‘Total 90’ concept. Having Tim on a track, within less than a month as the Nectax and Dwarde EP is released, is just such a wicked start to the year for us.  

What’s next for the label?

I just want to stay consistent with the releases now. Doing bits on a monthly basis. We’ve got a lot of stuff in the bank. There’s a number of upcoming releases further down the line that’s already got lots of traction. There’s the Arkyn EP coming out, with collaborations from DJ B and Syntax, a Worsleyy two-tracker containing a Cheetah remix, also Ac1d Vicious and Fez the Kid with Bruk and Toby Ross collabs. Plus loads of wicked bits for Soundcloud from the likes of Craic David, Funk Alchemist and Rex. All these guys are doing bits! For the year after, I’d love to get an album down. The concepts are already there. We’re thinking of doing a big Motive Hunter production getaway in the summer where the initial seeds can be planted. I’d love to get the Dutch boys Coco Bryce & Stekker to release on the label too. I think that could happen this year for sure.

It’s great to see this new wave of jungle prospering from the grassroots up.

Yes, it really is! As I said before I’ve only been active in the scene for a few years in the midst of the modern-day jungle resurgence. It’s refreshing to know Motive Hunter got into it at a good time. Ultimately, the jungle community is still close-knit and underground. The smaller nights are what the scene relies on, the grassroots leads the way. Of course, we now get the big jungle representation on events at Printworks and The Warehouse Project which is great, but the main focus should always be the intimate events. Without the smaller labels and brands, jungle wouldn’t be where it’s at. It’s great that there’s so many more and more people wanting to get involved, and fly the flag!

What’s Motive Hunter’s role been in this new school jungle sound so far?

It’s still finding its feet to be fair, but I can confidently say that I feel the music we’re putting out is contributing something to the conversation. The way that I see it is that focus needs to be put on maintaining up-and-coming talent’s progression whilst also intertwining established artists in the mix. The best of both worlds. Every artist that’s come on the label has rubbed off on us in terms of sonic influence. I do think the sound we’re developing now is bang on though. It’s digital jungle, Hard and Fast, Bass and Breaks.  

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