Les Nuits #2014: Jungle

(© Oliver Hadlee Pearch)

Britain’s got talent! If you’ve seen the videos for “The Heat” and “Platoon”, you know what we mean. But Jungle is, quite simply, the best British pop band in, well, a long time – a modern soul outfit that has brought groove and breathing space back to dance. "Ego is a big no-no."

Damn this band JUNGLE is the shit,” tweeted the Amsterdam prodigy known as the Child of Lov, shortly before he died late last year. J(osh Lloyd-Watson) and T(om McFarland), the duo behind Britain’s hippest dance act, are still shaken by his untimely death. “I still get shivers down my spine from it,” says J, shaking his head. “Which is weird, as I didn’t know him personally. The paths of our music crossed each other; he encouraged us to push on; and in turn we inspired him. There was a deep connection, without ever having actually met. That is the power of the Internet.”

The Internet, and the exhibitionist culture triggered by it, is something the duo – described as “masters of mystery” by the BBC when it put them on its Sound of 2014 longlist – has a problem with. Not that they want to keep their identities secret: but they don’t want to put themselves in the front line of a “selfie society”. In their video for “Platoon”, a six-year-old girl shows off her breakdance moves; in the video for “The Heat”, the show is stolen by two black roller-skaters in green tracksuits, while J and T are notable for their absence.

“Suddenly, we were that mysterious duo, but that wasn’t the intention,” recalls J. “Those videos are just the paintings of the songs: genuine pieces of art. Ego is a big no-no in music: we don’t want to be in the limelight ourselves, because that tarnishes the music. We are a collective, not a collection of individuals. What T and I have is a self-fulfilling creative relationship. That is our freedom, that creates bliss. I don’t mean that we are Buddhists: I struggle with my ego every day, but not in Jungle. If you start to push yourself forward, you ruin that creativity, whereas now we have something really pure. As pure as that little girl who hears our music and starts to breakdance.”

The video is not a reference to the B-Boy-culture of the 1980s, says J. “That is a first, cultural layer; for us, it’s about something that goes deeper: we show the kid without manipulating everything in the footage, without cuts. You can see her eyes; it is about her story, about the emotion that the music arouses in her, her self-confidence and naivety.”

“People see something nostalgic in our music,” says T. “That’s there alright, but we never try to refer to a specific time and place. We dive into a set of emotions we had as children. As a child, you set about drawing or constructing wonderful things with Lego: you create a whole world in your imagination. Your mind is clear and free, without the preconceptions you have as an adult, which kill parts of your brain.”

J and T met fifteen years ago, when they were ten and Josh moved into T’s neighbourhood in Shepherd’s Bush in London. One day, J jumped over T’s hedge and asked if he was interested in swapping Pokémon cards. “That’s really how it happened,” laughs T. “The strength of this group is that our friendship goes back so far. Live, we take that onto the stage with five of friends, not with hired-in session musicians. That would be dishonest.”

After a short spell in the psychedelic shoegaze band Born Blonde, the two began to cobble music together in bedrooms. Music soon to be heard on their untitled debut album, due out on 15 July – a groovy dance-pop album chock-full of funky bass lines, catchy hip-hop beats, ethereal synths, disco guitars Nile Rodgers-style, found sounds, and interwoven deep and falsetto voices, as if the Beach Boys had taken up R&B. Names mentioned in our conversation included Parliament, The National, Justice, Bob Dylan, Jeff Buckley, MF Doom, Toro Y Moi, Shuggie Otis, and J. Dilla. Musically, there isn’t much you can tell these two young lads. As kids, they dissected records like Pet Sounds and What’s Going On. “That are just incredible albums,” explains T. “Marvin Gaye starts his album off with a party scene. He gives us a message that doesn’t just come from him, but from all the people who are there. That is very powerful. Pet Sounds is a wonderful example of the limitation that stimulates creativity. That record was recorded with just four tracks! Above all, albums like that evoke a time and a place and a set of feelings I like connecting to.”

J and T are fascinated by the creation of a different reality, as in computer games. “Look at Grand Theft Auto, which is ridiculously popular,” says J. “After a day’s work, people opt to spend hours on end living in a different world. Fascinating, isn’t it? We do something similar in our music. When we write songs, first we construct a place and then we try to move ourselves there. In “The Heat”, that is Venice Beach fused with the Copacabana, with monkeys riding motorbikes. Every track has a visual landscape like that. Very escapist, really. And all that euphoria is contrasted with lyrics about anger, paranoia, and fear. Our music is full of conflict. The whole record is a fight between the subconscious and the conscious.”

So, is “Busy Earnin’” a commentary on our “money-ocracy”? “More of an observation,” according to T. “I would never try to impose my opinion: I just describe how I see the world. That song is about losing people that are dear to you because you are too busy with other things. These days, the ideal of working-all-the-time is dominant. We are guilty of that ourselves too.” “The recession has a lot to do with it,” thinks J. “There is a whole generation of young people between 18 and 30 who want to be somebody, no matter what it costs. They want to prove themselves. That pressure drives people mad and they forget to really communicate and live.” He refers once more to the pressure of media culture: “Everywhere, a perfect world is being created that you have to comply with. The Kardashians as an ideal, if you like. But seven billion people have no access to that ideal.”

Jungle • 25/5, 19.30, €17/20, Botanique, Koningsstraat 236 rue Royale, Sint-Joost-ten-Node/Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, 02-218.37.32, www.botanique.be