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(SXSW 2014 flavoured!) Bands to Watch #281: Jungle

Jungle are purveyors of sun-drenched downtempo electro-soul, a facsimile of which can often be heard playing on the radio of, say, a 1965 Chevy Malibu SS whilst cruising the vice-ridden streets of a simulated Los Angeles. Title track of recent EP ‘The Heat’ comes complete with a brief straight-faced spoken-word introduction and even some police siren action towards the end, all adding up to a cinematic production style which sounds very west coast indeed (and we’re not talking Cumbria here). It’s smooth, sleazy, and very, very, cool. The Heat has just been released to much fanfare on B3SCI records in North America, comprising all four tracks previously recorded in the UK.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4UckOGdZtI[/youtube]

‘Lucky I Got What I Want’ is a soundalike to ‘The Heat’; although more atmospheric and downtempo, it carries the same instrumentation and tone, much as B-sides of old. All blissed-out vocals, detuned, mellow synth, and the tiniest of percussion ticks – this is music to watch the sun come up to. ‘Platoon’ and ‘Drops’, are even more downtempo and inscrutable – is this the first example of glitch-soul? To be honest, the recent fanfare around Jungle appears to be more to do with their carefully-crafted image, rather than the pure excellence of these tracks. They may end up huge, but is there really enough to go on in this first, determinedly downtempo, collection? Anyway, it’s enough to land them a spot on both the BBC’s Sound Of 2014 *and* This Is Fake DIY’s Class of 2014’s list, which has to count for something. We await their SXSW performance with interest…