Jungle Fire – Jungle Fire - 2020 Afrobeat Latin Funk - Black Vinyl - Sealed LP
In stock
SKU
23283
CA$46.95
Jungle Fire - Jungle Fire
Label: Nacional Records – NCL 20179LP
Format:
Vinyl, LP
Hype sticker says "If the Godfather of Soul had started a Salsa band, it might have sounded like Jungle Fire"
Barcode: 7 4136083937 3
Barcode: 7 4136083937 3
Country: US
Released: Feb 14, 2020
Genre: Latin, Funk / Soul
Style: Afrobeat, Soul, Salsa, Afro-Cuban
A1 Quemalo
3:41
A2 Pico Union
2:53
A3 Biri Biri
2:53
A4 Masa
2:51
A5 Slipshot
2:52
B1 Emboscada
3:30
B2 Smash & Grab
3:16
B3 Oscilladope
2:46
B4 Atomico
3:49
B5 Consider This 2:19
''The 10-piece Los Angeles band Jungle Fire calls the music it makes “tropi-funk,” and the reasoning permeates its self-titled new album, a seamless convergence of Latin, Afro-Cuban, West African and American soul-funk sounds. Now in its ninth year as a project that started as a one-off, the instrumental unit has become one of the city’s best live bands, and the evidence of its tightness is all over its third studio album.
Recorded onto eight-track analog tape, the measures, beats and melodies across 10 tracks suggest some weird amalgam of “Superfly”-era Curtis Mayfield, Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti’s essential work with Africa 70, the conga-powered Cuban heavy Juan Pablo Torres, James Brown’s epic 1970s soul-funk, and boogaloo and salsa legend Ray Barretto. That is, an avalanche of polyrhythmic drive punctuated by brass bursts, tangled, oft-fuzzy guitar lines, the occasional human bellow and dubby bass patterns.
Though wordless, “Jungle Fire” is powered by the energy of Los Angeles. One standout track, “Pico Union,” is named for the neighborhood just west of downtown where the band rehearses. Another, “Masa,” is drawn from the band’s passion for the tamales sold in the neighborhood and, according to release notes, is “dedicated to a Japanese masa-loving audio engineer friend of the band, Masa Tsuzuki.”
“Smash & Grab” is a chase scene of a song propelled by a bellowing brass line that recalls Kuti’s Africa 70 collaborations. With frantic congas calculating algebraic rhythms and everyone working in unison, it feels at times as if the band’s 100 fingers (give or take) are maneuvering at once. The track seems destined to score a heist scene in the next installment of the “Oceans” franchise.
As a whole, in fact, “Jungle Fire” plays like an hourlong action flick, with shifting tempos, competing narratives and a push-and-pull tension. By the time the band hits closing song “Consider This,” which it calls in release notes “a likely approximation to what would happen if [Jungle Fire] scored an episode of ... ‘Twilight Zone,’” the band has delivered the kind of dance-floor-stomping action that commands attention.'' (LATimes)
| Condition | New |
|---|---|
| Format | LP |
| Color | Black |
