*Village Underground, London*
Jungle's J and T foot-slide modernist soul back to the cutting edge: anonymous, psychedelic, dubbed-out
After 20 years of digital shouting, we've now entered the age of the whisperer. Secretive, word-of-mouth intrigue and a deviously low profile equate to greater devotion.
Alt-J, Wu Lyf, Parquet Courts and now Jungle , two west London soul revisionists known only as J and T, who hide their faces and identities, created a sub-web buzz last year with just two videos for The Heat and Platoon, featuring jaw-dropping rollerskate street dance married to equally dazzling 25th-century soul music.
In an era when every buttoned-down Essex chillwaver with a minimalist beat, a rubber larynx and an XX record reckons they're the new Marvin Gaye, Jungle really do foot-slide soul back to the cutting edge.
They arrive seven-strong and backlit into faceless shadows to a tape of sirens in the Congo, and quickly marry spine-rattling, modernist dub crunches to squeals, echoes and falsetto harmonies so melodically perfect you'd think they were Swedish.
If The Heat factors in Daft Punk's disco panache, they take the progressive fiddling with 70s funk to inventive new heights on Crime, adding a psychedelic shimmer to a Streets of San Francisco soul shuffle and dramatic three-chord runs.
The tribal-gothic Lucky I Got What I Want hints at more ominous devilry to come, but tonight's hazy party vibe reaches a climax with euphoric new psych-pop single Busy Earnin', their Loaded. This year's Disclosure, Jungle will destroy the 2014 festival circuit so long as, in daylight, they don't turn out to be Junior Senior having another crack.
• Did you catch this gig – or any other recently? Tell us about it using #GdnGig
Rating: 4/5 Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 day ago.
Jungle's J and T foot-slide modernist soul back to the cutting edge: anonymous, psychedelic, dubbed-out
After 20 years of digital shouting, we've now entered the age of the whisperer. Secretive, word-of-mouth intrigue and a deviously low profile equate to greater devotion.
Alt-J, Wu Lyf, Parquet Courts and now Jungle , two west London soul revisionists known only as J and T, who hide their faces and identities, created a sub-web buzz last year with just two videos for The Heat and Platoon, featuring jaw-dropping rollerskate street dance married to equally dazzling 25th-century soul music.
In an era when every buttoned-down Essex chillwaver with a minimalist beat, a rubber larynx and an XX record reckons they're the new Marvin Gaye, Jungle really do foot-slide soul back to the cutting edge.
They arrive seven-strong and backlit into faceless shadows to a tape of sirens in the Congo, and quickly marry spine-rattling, modernist dub crunches to squeals, echoes and falsetto harmonies so melodically perfect you'd think they were Swedish.
If The Heat factors in Daft Punk's disco panache, they take the progressive fiddling with 70s funk to inventive new heights on Crime, adding a psychedelic shimmer to a Streets of San Francisco soul shuffle and dramatic three-chord runs.
The tribal-gothic Lucky I Got What I Want hints at more ominous devilry to come, but tonight's hazy party vibe reaches a climax with euphoric new psych-pop single Busy Earnin', their Loaded. This year's Disclosure, Jungle will destroy the 2014 festival circuit so long as, in daylight, they don't turn out to be Junior Senior having another crack.
• Did you catch this gig – or any other recently? Tell us about it using #GdnGig
Rating: 4/5 Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 day ago.