Brazilian Money, a band that we’ve featured before who have a new and mightily focussed 6-track EP out, turned me on to Little Jungles, and I’m sure glad they did: “Winter Was Warmer”, an impossibly delicious slice of shoegaze that’s drenched in early nineties influences, has instantly become one of my favourite tracks of the year so far, and the rest of Little Jungles’ debut “Wuts Goin Thru Yer Head” is pretty gorgeous too.
“Drive Yerself Crazy” opens things up with inviting, playful synths and beats that wouldn’t feel out of place on an Aphex Twin album. The deliberate misspelling of the title puts Mercury Rev’s early work in mind, and this is indeed dream-pop in the same mould. Beneath the chirpy sound, though, there’s some obvious emotional unrest: “You’re always telling me all the negative things that I know I could change, but it takes a long time to change.”
Clearly then, Matthew Niemann, the man behind the Little Jungles name, isn’t afraid to speak his mind or tell us his troubles. These come further to the fore on a couple of the album’s weaker numbers, namely “Please Put That Knife Away”, an appropriately menacing but over-long song, and “1000 Cigarettes”, a howler that challenges Bon Iver’s “Beth/Rest” for corniest opening synth stabs of the year. Yeah.
Happily, these two tunes are nothing more than blips: Niemann puts gloom on the backburner for most of the album. “Turn To Me” combines the obvious sincerity of the album’s more serious tracks with a message that is as uplifting as the music actually sounds: “When all your plans have been derailed, don’t let it get you down. When you’re not sure which way to turn, turn to me.” “Blue Heron”, with its big riff, big drums and big distortion, is screaming to be played in a stadium and then, of course, there’s “Winter Is Warmer”. Too good.
If, like me, you hope that the echoes of the shoegaze heyday keep on reverberating forever, you have to check this album out. Stream all of “Wuts Goin Thru Yer Head” below and swing by the bandcamp link for a name your price download.
