Images via Filmawi //
So much groove….
UK production duo Jungle have been a constant force for groove and thrill in the global EDM scene for quite a while now, globetrotting across the globe and electrifying every dance floor they’ve come into contact with ever 2014 self-titled debut album. That talent for live shows, along with their ability to inject the spirit of disco into every corner of their musical offerings, has consequently made them one of the most in-demand EDM acts in the global scene, hence the endless amount of anticipation that’s defined the lead up to their latest album Loving In Stereo, out now.
The new record sees the duo revisit their roots for a blistering exploration of disco and soul, one charged with spontaneity and rife with freedom. From the uplifting strings of ‘Keep Moving’ to the lyrical onslaughts of ‘Romeo’ ft. Bas and the gentle soul flickers of ‘Goodbye My Love’ ft. Priya Ragu, the album covers a vast array of feeling and heart, and is the perfect way to soundtrack the beginning of the end of the last year-and-a-half.
We caught up with Tom from the duo to get deep on the new record, coming out of lockdowns and getting back on the road. Check it below.
This is one of the most uplifting albums I’ve heard all year; it radiates happiness. Is that what you guys were trying to achieve with it?
It wasn’t intentional. Everything we produce is always instinctual. And when we were making this record in 2018 and 2019, we were in a super good place in our lives. We were coming off the back of touring our second album, we’d built a new studio in London, and we were falling in love with different partners and girlfriends at the time. It felt like we had the chance to start fresh with Jungle and take it back to its roots in a really weird way. We’d also just finished working with XL, and we knew that we were going to be releasing this on our own label. That just gave us so much confidence to really express ourselves.
The second album For Ever was quite introspective. It went against the grain in terms of what we set out to achieve with Jungle if I’m honest. The first album was super tongue-in-cheek, essentially me and Josh taking the piss out of ourselves a little bit. I think you spend quite a long time as a musician being like, “Oh, I must be serious, I must be thoughtful.” And we just thought, “Fuck it, let’s just have fun in the studio.” And that’s where album one came from and album two was a natural reaction to that, with us being like “We’ve got to be more serious.”
And so, album three is a reaction against that and more “Okay, let’s get back to having fucking fun, man. There’s a really good vibe brewing in the early stages of making this record. So, let’s run with that and see where it goes.” So yeah, I don’t think it was intentional, but rather just the natural cycle of things.
It really captures that euphoria of disco and what you’d associate with the ideal dance floor and party. Was that an image you guys had while making it? Did you have a moodboard of parties to draw from?
We have so many visual and sonic influences. They’re always bubbling beneath the surface. And the best thing to do when you’re in a studio is to not have any outside intervention messing with that. You’ve just got to set yourself free from all of the boundaries. For example, as soon as you’re like “I want to write a happy song,” you’re going to write a pastiche of a happy song. If you say to yourself “Okay, this track is going to have a disco feel,” it often ends up being so much like something that you’ve already heard that there’s just no point in carrying on with it.
So, it’s really important for me and Josh to always have an awareness of our inspirations and what makes us feel good when we’re listening to music. But when you’re in the studio, you’ve really just gotta let all of that go because then the real, natural subconscious creativity comes out of the woodwork.
That’s where you find the uniqueness in that inspiration. So, you hear a lot of disco, funk and soul on this third record but it all feels super original to us and like stuff we’ve never heard before because we didn’t go into it with a set of rules.
Just honing in on that unconscious, reactionary part, do you reckon that part of your process goes beyond the album as a whole and underpins the construction of the songs themselves? Whether it be melodically, tonally or texturally etc.
That’s very possible. It’s difficult to think about it in that way because the lack of thought is so prevalent in what we do. It’s like a stream of consciousness and on this album, in particular, we wanted to be really careful in capturing that idea in its most nebulous form and not overworking or overthinking it. I think as an artist, you can write something and then you’ll sit there and be like “Does it need to be more of this or does it need to be more of that?” Often the ideas present themselves to you in their purest form and in the form that they’re meant to be shared with the world.
And so, making this record was in a sense a reaction itself to the fact that sometimes we can overthink shit. This album was more of whatever came out of us first, creatively. Just that being the idea and what needed to be cherished the most. And then again, in the making of the videos, we really tried to echo that as well. We set ourselves the task of making a video for every track on this record and we gave ourselves five days to do that.
So, that’s 14 videos in five days. That’s two or three hours per video, and the fact that we were pushing ourselves to be reactive and not overthink things just translates so much more energy when filming, and it really gives you those really unique moments that you can’t script and or choreograph.
With the ‘Truth’ video, I saw that you didn’t play the dancers the song until the first take which seems so unheard of. What was the reason behind that and how do you reckon it played out compared to if they had heard it before?
It was just that. That song in itself is probably the least Jungle song on the record. I think that’s probably the song our listeners will get to on the record and be like, “Oh, where’s this coming from?” And we just wanted to echo that in the visual. We wanted the dancers to just express themselves. It was the last video we shot at the end of a long week and the whole onus was just on having fun and letting go. It was also about not having any preconceptions and- creating something that really mirrored what was happening on record visually as well.
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When you were collaborating with Bas on ‘Romeo,’ were you following that mantra of just letting go? Or were you being more mindful, given that it was one of the first collaborations you were going to release?
We met Bas at a festival in 2018 and when we were doing the final recording session for this record, he just texted us saying “Yo, I’m in London. Do you want to go for a beer?” And we were like, “Well, we’re in the studio. Do you want to come down and fucking try something out?”
And again, it was just a spur of the moment thing. Just not thinking about it and not us trying to reach for a feature to cross Spotify fucking listenerships, which I think a lot of UK artists tend to do. So again, all of these things that we’ve been striving towards have just felt really natural. Like we’ve just hit a new vein of having so much confidence in our early ideas that we don’t need to prescribe anything.
And Bas is just such a cool guy, man. You can hear it in that track, just the energy that he brought into the studio. It’s something we’ve never made before and I think it’s down to the fact that someone else in the room was there giving us confidence in ourselves. We were just playing him beats and he was like, “That’s dope. That’s dope. That’s dope.” And we were like, “Really? Is it? Okay, cool.” And so, you’re just given that transfer of energy and of hype and belief, which set us on a really great path of finishing the record.
You guys were both in relationships at the time of making this album and have talked about how being in those relationships inspired a lot of it. Did you notice it overtly seep into the creative process at all? Any manifestations in melody or other aspects of the songwriting?
I think just generally, the music that you create will always reflect your mood. If you go into the studio and you’re tired then you’ll probably end up making something more downtempo, or if you go in and you’ve had a really great morning and you’re feeling cool, you’re going to naturally be more effervescent and forthcoming.
So, I think this record just reflects the fact that towards the end of 2018, we’d just come off the back of touring the last record, we were feeling great and super confident, and everything was just amazing. Josh had just moved to East London, we’d built a new studio and both had new girlfriends and it was just an exciting time. And London was buzzing at that time. Yeah, we were in a really good place and I think this record reflects that. I think if in a couple of years down the line we’re in different places personally, then the record will naturally sound different.
Just broadening things out a bit, being in London last year, you guys really felt the full brunt of the lockdowns. Considering that dance is so instinctual as you’ve said and it’s such a big part of your lives, what was it like existing in a world without it?
In a way, it was quite good because it allowed us to leave the record alone for a bit and really get some perspective on it. So when we did come back to it and when we knew that the environment for releasing records would be a little bit healthier, we were like “You know what, this is actually really good and we still really love this.” And the fact that we still loved it and it felt just as relevant to us as artists six to eight months on was a really positive thing.
It was just a really good time for personal reflection. We spend a lot of time on the road or in the studio and you never get a chance to sit back and look at the bigger picture. And obviously, the bigger picture was smaller at that moment because you couldn’t go out, you couldn’t go to the cinema or art galleries. So, you were just left alone with yourself, your friends and your thoughts, and that was actually quite nice for us. That was a really nice change for once.
How do you think the notion of partying and dance across the world will change because of the events of the past year-and-a-half? Have you noticed any changes on dance floors in the UK since it’s reopened?
I think there’s definitely going to be a lot more partying. A lot more living it up for next 12 to 18 months for people across the world. Hopefully, it will be quite Hedonistic and freeing because we’ve gone through this incredible time of fucking change and weirdness, and we’ll never experience something like this again, I hope [laughs].
Like I was cycling through London this time last year and there were no cars or people. I’ve lived in London for 32 years and to see my city like that was so rare. It was like being in 28 Days Later. Seriously, it was like a fucking zombie apocalypse. But what a moment in time to be able to hopefully look back and reflect on positively. But obviously, it fucking sucked for people a lot more than it did for us. We’re in a very privileged position.
And I think we’ve just got to be grateful rather than sitting around and moaning about it. We’ve just got to be grateful that things weren’t tougher for us than it was for a lot of other people. Just looking forward, there will definitely be a cultural golden era coming up. Artists, theatre directors, filmmakers, all of them have got a lot stored up, a lot of pent up energy. And so, hopefully, that’s going to create a bit of a golden age in culture and art and will help ease us out of the pain of what’s happened.
I’ve seen you start to promote a lot of your upcoming shows online. Does that pre-album excitement/anticipation feel even more intoxicating this time around, after everything that’s happened?
Definitely. We’ve been away from it for too long. And the adrenaline rush of performing is such a drug. Being on stage and sharing those moments with our fans is the lifeblood of Jungle and it gives us the energy to do it week in, week out. When you’re on the road, being away from your family and your friends for a month is pretty shit on paper. But the fact that you get to make these amazing connections with thousands of people every night gives you the energy to do it.
So it’s super exciting. But it’s also like “Oh my god, did we always put that many dates in the diary before!?” [laughs] So yeah, there’s a lot of trepidation and nerves. We also want to make sure that we’re doing this in a very responsible way and we’re not putting anyone at risk. But ultimately, I hope that the overall picture gets a little bit brighter across the world for everyone. If we can be a part of that, then it’d be a great thing.
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Lastly, as a fan it’s always a very special experience getting your hands on an album you’ve been waiting for. For the fans who’ve been desperate for ‘Loving In Stereo,’ how would you recommend they listen to it for the first time?
If you can, put it on loud! Sit by a sunny window or get out into the sunshine, or just get some mates around and have a good time. I think it’s a really positive record. It feels really relevant now, even though we wrote it before all of this COVID shit happened across the world. We’re just really grateful that it’s going to resonate in a way it wouldn’t have before. If we can uplift people and make them feel a little bit better about their day-to-day existence with this album, then that’s what we’re looking for.
Jungle’s new album ‘Loving In Stereo’ is out now. You can buy/stream it here.
