JUNGLE Vinyl & CDs

Review: Londoners Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland mix up funk, set soul, dance and nu-disco for a fourth album here in Volcano. They draw on some top-notch collaborators along the way - Erick the Architect, Channel Tres, Roots Manuva, Mood Talk and Bas - and wrote most of it while on tour to support their last album. They say it is the most honest album of their career to date and it is indeed a little more song-based and soulful. The sounds are free and the energy is still explosive so the tracks are sure to work just as well in the live area as at home.

Review: Dance pair Tom McFarland and Joshua Lloyd-Watson aka Jungle cut loose on this, their third and most evocative album to date. It is a record packed with the sort of good time grooves and wall to wall party tunes we all want to hear after such a dark 18 months or so. There are plenty of heart on sleeve tunes, hooky top lines and warm, soaring summer chords that are designed to be heard outdoors, on a massive festival sound system with thousands of people singing along next to you. Some slower, dubbed out rhythms provide a nice counter to stop things growing too saccharine, and overall it add up to a great listen.

Review: Following the runaway success of their Mercury Music Prize nominated 2014 debut album, Jungle moved to Los Angeles to record the follow-up. It didn't work out for a variety of musical and personal reasons, so they headed back to London and recorded "For Ever" instead. While some of the lyrics reflect on their musical and personal issues during that time, the resultant songs are as soulful, polished and jaunty as you'd expect. Check, for example, the sun-kissed disco-pop of "Heavy California", the sumptuous lo-fi soul shuffle of "Cherry", the head-nodding grooves and lyrical melancholy of "Happy Man" and the grandiose, bittersweet brilliance of "House In LA".

Review: The best editions of the long running "Back To Mine" series tend to be those where the chosen selector offers up a varied but loosely linked mix of surprising and lesser-known tunes. On their edition, Mercury Prize nominated duo Jungle has done just that. Beginning with the bluesy late night lament of Barbara Moore's "Steam Heart", the pair takes us on a warming and eye-opening journey through Afrobeat (Inflo), glassy-eyed wind-down deep house (Manuel Darquart, Admin's brilliant "Space Cadet"), skewed pop (Mocky), string-laden jazz-funk (Kamaal Williams), Serge Gainsbourg-esque chanson (Sam Evian), drowsy Balearica (Mansur Brown), and loved-up 1960s style dream pop (The Flying Stars Of Brooklyn NY, HNNY).

Review: Dave Lee's Z Records hits the milestone 20th edition of this Attack The Dance floor series. It has always been a reliable outlet for glossy, disco tinged and floor friendly house tunes from some of the genre's most accomplished names. This time out, Dave Lee appears ac couple of times, firstly with the feel good and soul-licked remix of Mike Lindup's 'Atlantia' and then with a boogie mix of Jungle's 'Keep Moving' which comes with a nice dotted funk bassline and big shiny strings. Lazywax and and Emmaculate Afrodisia remix further boost this useful 12".