Jungle are taking us on a sweet escape. The fourth studio album from the UK production duo has arrived and is already solidified as one of our favourite projects of the year. With a slew of exciting features including Channel Tres, Roots Manuva and Bas, the album ebbs and flows ever so sweetly throughout this sun-drenched, palm tree-filled world where freedom is the motive. With an Australian and New Zealand tour coming up in 2024 (tickets are on sale HERE), it's all happening for Jungle. We spoke to T from the duo about creating Volcano and the evolution of Jungle:

We've been listening to the album and it's so brilliant. We love the opening track, especially, it is such a great way to enter this world. What was the starting point for you with this album?

“Us Against the World was actually one of the first songs that we recorded in LA in like April last year. We had a bit of time in between tours and decided to head out to LA for a couple of weeks. Rented this really cool house up in the hills. Just like, chucked a pair of speakers up, took some synths and some guitars. Us Against the World, Candle Flame, Back On 74 were all recorded in that little session. That was the sort of embryo of the record. It felt like a very free time creatively, which was fantastic. And that's something that we were very keen to achieve on this record is trying not to overthink anything and make sure that we're creating quickly without second guessing ourselves. Trying to avoid over editing, because I think you can get into that place as a creative person where you distill an idea down so much that it just loses so much of its original flavour. It just becomes watered down to the point that it's like, barely recognisable from what you were excited about. Sometimes as a creative person, you just get stuck in this like logjam of 'gotta make it better, gotta make it this, gotta make it that’ and actually you can just accept what it is, first up.

How do you think that your music differs when you make it in LA versus London?

I don't think it necessarily differs in terms of like the process. But we probably just feel a little bit more free, right? Like when you're in London, there are friends and family, there are distractions, there are like bills to pay, you know, but when you're in LA, you're able to spend 24 hours a day thinking about it and working on it. I guess you just like lose yourself in it a little bit more than you would because you're in a place that is new, it's unfamiliar, it's exciting, it's sunny, it's hot. I think that's kind of it really. I don't think the process changes, but maybe you're just like a little bit more inside the music.”

Yeah, you can hear that. You can hear the sunny summer feeling in the music. Was there anything particular inspiring you while you were creating it all?

Again, I think it just goes back to like the whole philosophy behind the record, which is do it quickly and be as free as possible. Al our albums are often a response to previous albums. So like the first album was created with like a great amount of uncertainty and the second album was a reaction to that in terms of trying to get more meaning into it. I think as a result that felt a little bit too personal to us as creative people. Jungle has always been this space where we've actually tried to remove ourselves and our egos from the equation entirely. The third and the fourth records have just been like trying to just get on this vibe of doing things quickly. Making it exciting, enjoying it again, trying not to get bogged down in the details.

I think this record is actually the pinnacle of that now. We're at a point where technically we're much better producers, songwriters, arrangers than we've ever been. It's just really great to be able to fully realize the vision that you have in your head. Because I think previous albums, you've had ideas for stuff, not necessarily being able to execute it fully. That's been frustrating, but also understandable. I think we've sort of left no stone unturned now. So it kind of feels like we're just flying at the top of the mountain. 

How do you think that you guys have evolved personally since the first album to where you're at now?

The main thing that we've noticed is just an increased sense of confidence, self belief not worrying, like just really being able to leave. Behind any notion of like worrying about what people think about us or what people say about us, or are we doing the right thing? There's so much naivety and uncertainty that comes with creativity you're younger and obviously it’s 10 years ago now, since we started releasing records so I think it's just confidence, it's belief. It sounds crude, but like not giving a fuck. That’s the space we're in now. We're old enough now to realize that the only opinions that matter are our own. 

That's the process, it's such a great point to get to. 

Yeah, I think so. And hopefully it continues that way.

It will. That just comes like with age as well and you've had such a huge output in the last 10 years. It's cool that you've got to that point. It feels like the theme of the album is freedom. 

Yeah, I agree with that. And I think the sound of the record just really reflects that, you know, it reflects our confidence, it reflects our increased technical ability, our increased songwriting. It's really satisfying to feel like we're at the top of our game. 

Tell us about the features on the album, because they're such great choices, but how did you decide on who you wanted to be part of this world this time? 

So Bas was a no brainer. He collaborated with us on a track called Romeo on our third record. He’s a really great friend. Whenever we see him at festivals… he’s come out on stage with us a few times when we've been on the West Coast in L. A. We had Pretty Little Thing lying around. We did a session in February last year. Right at the end of that week, we were noodling around and we came up with that little vocal riff and the guitar for Pretty Little Thing which is the last track on the record so when we were looking at that, we thought, okay this feels this feels like Bas to us. So got in touch with him and within 10 minutes he was like, yeah wicked let's go. 

We were in the studio with Roots Manuva in 2016. Nothing came of what we did at the time but when we were putting the record together… we tend to do it like a collage a lot of the time. We have hundreds of ideas floating around and then when we want to put it all together, we just pick the best bits and stick it all together and hope it works. So we remembered this bit that Roots had done for us a long time ago now. That was quite a nice, serendipitous moment of synchronicity. 

The same happened with Channel Tres, we worked with him in LA in 2018 or 2019. It was just a track that didn't necessarily work at the time, but what he had done on it was amazing. I've Been In Love was sitting there as a great hook, as a great chorus, and we had a good verse, essentially, musically and, and production wise. But we just didn't have anything else to put on it, and it was like, oh, hang on a minute, this is the same key and the same tempo as that track that we wrote with Channel back in the day. Does it work? We lifted the a cappella off, put it on again, and it worked. That’s in the bag.

One of the key collaborators on this record was a girl called Lydia Kitto, who sung with us live on the third album campaign. We soon realised that she was just an amazing talent to have around in the studio. She's a great songwriter, an amazing lyricist, flowing with ideas. When you're in the studio with someone like that, it just makes the whole process like enjoyable, fun, free energising. She had done a session in New York with the Flatbush Zombie guys and knew Eric and again, we had Candle Flame, we had the hook that we wrote that in L. A. with Lydia last year, and it was like, it's missing something, and Lydia was like, oh, should we just send it to Eric? So we sent it to Eric, and a couple of hours later, he’d sent us back two verses, which were absolutely amazing, and just took that song to a whole new level.

So it’s a mixture of people that we've met, people that we admire. Having Roots Manuva on the record for us as two kids that grew up in West London listening to UK hip hop in the 2000s, being in the studio with him was just just a mind blowing experience.

That's really special. How do you hope people feel listening to the album? 

I want people to take away something unique to them. I don't think we ever write music to overly prescribe an emotion or a feeling. We always want people to be able to connect with it in a very personal way. It’s quite different to a lot of songwriters. A lot of songwriters want to tell their story and dictate a feeling or dictate an emotion to their audience. It’s kind of the opposite for us. We want to give people a plethora of emotional information and they can like pick the bits from it that they want.

Ultimately enjoyment. I think we always want to make records that sound good in the summer. Or when you're listening to them in the winter, they remind you of the summer or make you yearn for it. Jungle's always been a sonic world that we've wanted to escape into ourselves. We made the first album in a bedroom in the middle of winter in Sheppards Bush in London, and every song was a chance to escape into somewhere different, into a different space, into a different world. Escapism, freedom, fun. think when we're making music, we want to be dancing around the studio. If that can translate with our audience, then we're doing the right thing. 

We love that answer. It's true. Most people do want to invoke a specific feeling in their audience. It's cool to hear that this is about pure fun, enjoyment and freedom. ‍

Listen to Volcano HERE.

@jungle4eva