The members of the West London electronic-soul group Jungle don’t like to reveal much. Lead singers J and T won’t even disclose their real names, and the seven-piece band never appears in their idiosyncratic videos. “Music is a visual thing for us” is just about all J will say about their process. “We take from film, art, video games.” The cover of their second EP, The Heat—released last year and now highly coveted by record collectors—was an image of two men in tracksuits next to a ceramic panther with a gold record on the wall. The cover of their first record, Platoon, depicted a girl on a bed surrounded by faux Jungle posters and other memorabilia. “We wanted to see if we could make it like the band had been around forever, but nobody even knew who they were,” J explains. With their falsetto vocals and synth-heavy sound, Jungle—which will debut their first full-length album, Jungle, in July—bring to mind the Bee Gees in their pre-disco days. But, no surprise, Jungle do not welcome the comparison. Says J: “If we feel like we’re sounding like something we’ve heard before, we shut it off.”
