2017: A Mosaic and a Farewell

Some years feel like an acceleration. Others also make a community take stock of what it has lost. In 2017, drum & bass celebrated an adventurous record from Camo & Krooked while saying goodbye to one of its most respected deep-sound architects.

Camo & Krooked released Mosaik on 23 June 2017. From 'Ember' to 'Mandala', it moved between dramatic textures, dancefloor propulsion and almost cinematic transitions. 'Mandala', with Mefjus, made the relationship between imaginative composition and intricate engineering impossible to miss.

Full album, original 2017 edition.

UKF release upload, May 2017.

Marcus Kaye (Marcus Intalex / Trevino) died in May 2017. As an artist and co-founder of Soul:r, he had helped shape the more spacious, soulful side of the music across multiple decades. Tributes were not only about individual records: they were about a DJ, label-builder and connecting presence in Manchester's musical life.

Resident Advisor’s original 28 May 2017 report.

At the same time, jump-up kept attracting vast online audiences. Macky Gee's 'Tour' is a useful snapshot of that energy: abrasive, immediately recognisable and designed to make a crowd move. From the subtle to the outrageous, the decade's different branches were thriving side by side.

2017 track; an early UKF-era jump-up touchstone.

Two very different events define 2017: Camo & Krooked's forward-looking album Mosaik and the death of Marcus Intalex. One demonstrates how inventive and internationally confident the genre had become; the other asks us to remember the people and institutions that made such creativity sustainable. These stories belong together not because tragedy creates progress, but because both are part of a living community's experience.

RAM Records announced Camo & Krooked's Mosaik for May 2017. The label's own statement emphasised the duo's desire for a more narrative, exploratory listening experience. Their Austrian perspective and long-running collaboration produced a record that used drum & bass as a starting point for broader electronic composition. Rather than relying on an identical drop format across an album, they explored unusual pacing, melody and sound design.

Artist statements in promotional copy are evidence of intention, not independent proof of success. The best editorial treatment sets them beside the actual music and a range of contemporary reactions. It can describe what the record appears to do without pretending to know how every listener experienced it.

Marcus Intalex's death in May 2017 was a devastating loss for drum & bass. His legacy includes his productions, DJ sets, Soul:r and the artist relationships he cultivated. A meaningful tribute should go beyond a list of popular singles. Intalex helped create an environment for subtle groove and emotional depth, and he supported producers whose music did not necessarily fit the industry's most visible trends.

Remember Soul:ution and the culture around it: the identity of a label, the trust built by a DJ, the room a promoter created, the records that circulated in specialist sets. That is how long-term influence works. A scene loses more than a catalogue when it loses a curator.

By 2017 neurofunk had become an international festival language, with artists, labels and events connecting the Netherlands, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary and elsewhere. But scenes were not identical from country to country. Local promoters, sound-system standards and audience histories shaped how the music was experienced. International recognition is an opportunity to investigate local stories, not a reason to stop at one festival headline.

The cast should include vocalists, MCs, photographers, artists responsible for event artwork, radio broadcasters and engineers. Their contributions often fail to appear when the year is remembered through an album and a death. Original flyers, surviving mixes and carefully attributed recollections can give those people a place in the story without fabricating speeches or dressing an anecdote as a verified event.

What lasts in drum & bass is not only a particular bass sound. It is the practice of building platforms for other people to make music. A forward-looking record such as Mosaik and a legacy such as Intalex's reveal different dimensions of the same cultural strength.

Camo & Krooked described the new direction as “a logical progression” in the RAM Records album announcement. It is a useful reminder that listeners may hear a dramatic stylistic leap where an artist sees years of experimentation reaching maturity.