Live Review: Jungle Love Music & Arts Festival

After the success of last year's new site, the third Jungle Love Music & Arts Festival makes a welcome return to Borumba Deer Park in Imbil. It's a dream venue for a festival, and there are no signs that the 100% increase in ticket sales have overcrowded the site in the slightest.

Friday

It's a fantastic weathered Friday, and the promise of a dip in the stream makes the campsite set-up all the more chilled. Once down on the banks of the water, echoes of last year ring out and the rich spirit of this festival can really be felt. No ordinary festival, but rather the ultimate cultural theme-park; it's a regular riot of joy everywhere you look, with rainbow bicycles and Cheshire smiles abound. It's easy to see why talk of this great event continued through the year.

A strong sense of community is already taking shape again and the potent sounds of another stellar line-up of music are blowing like the breeze. Local lyrical acrobat Kudos spits a barrage of sharp verses over a solid serve of hip hop beats. His wordplay and delivery are fine-tuned to a bedazzling point of precision as he skips in and out of the timings with the relaxed assurance of kid playing in his own backyard.

The Rejuvenatorium — chai tent — has shifted its location slightly this year but once again its daytime schedule delivers on the same promise: it's a place of connection and creativity where watercolour painting, collage, and creative writing are but a few of many workshops, talks and performances that look to inspire and fuel the fires within.  Meanwhile, the one-two back-and-forth of the Yonder and Wonder stages provide the perfect settings for bands to tap into their live craft. Accomplice Collective, Electrified Fooling Machine, and Captain Dreamboat all seem to be riding of beams of aural light on the lead-up to the sun's descent.

With dusk setting in, Hazards Of Swimming Naked descend into dreamier territory with instrumental journeys that traverse varied paths of post-rock excellence. The inspired visual projections, which frame the Yonder stage, further add to the dreaminess of their sound and help to transport the audience deep into their realm.

Brisbane's Beneb, aka Ben Mackay, fills out the stage with a five-piece live band, who add a few extra drops of psychedelia to his rock orchestrations. It's a perfect time-slot for a crowd that is starting to well and truly dip their feelers into the night. The band seem to feed off this intensifying mood and hammer out a real cracker of set.

Mesmerism once again becomes a space of deep contemplation, playing host to the most far reaching and boundary pushing aural experimentation within in the festival. It's a melting pot of exploration that sees a collective of artist/musicians shift between solo and collaborative modes. James Scott's Bathomancy project sees him flow through focused, sensual movements with his bass. It appears like a cross between martial arts, contemporary dance, and musical performance, and it's impossible to look away. Timing is everything in music, but rarely is the spatial nature of sound explored in such an engaging way as this. King Colossus has many musical faces and the one that is shown tonight is certainly his most alluring. Gorgeous vocals float over a drifting sea of melancholic melody as a wash of visuals spill over throughout. It hits you in the chest and the weight of it leaves you anchored to the feeling, long after departure.   

The hypnotic bangers of Der Hase takes us on a techno roller-coaster ride that would hold its own on any given day in Berlin. The dancefloor packs out with a crowd looking to get their bass fix and things go manic for the full hour.

Twin Haus have started to make a name for themselves on the live circuit and it's easy to see why. Their enormity of their sound is bewildering, and the atmosphere they create is one worth getting lost in. The plans for a moon mission are in the writing and when a late sax enters the fold we have complete liftoff. It's a perfect main-stage closer that leaves an echo of something special trailing into the night...

Saturday

The Jungle Boogie stage serves up an double-dose of morning yoga for those up early enough to realign their energy centres, and the Jungle Booty dance workshop with Shia continues the bodily flow. Meanwhile, meditation and sound immersion with Haitch find some extra balance over at the Rejuvenatorium tent, and the fresh water stream is a touch of paradise for all. Rarely are there as many invigorating ways to greet the struggle of an early morning at a festival.

Many are only just beginning to snap out of their morning lethargy when the skies deliver on the grey threat, opening up and raining down with exaggerated force. It hits so suddenly that it can literally be seen moving across the crowd and heading toward one's vantage point. Its initial impact is a disaster for the outdoor Jungle Boogie stage, and after a prolonged period of downfall the stage is given the red light. 

The other stages fare better, making quick recoveries to start up again with Neighbour and TOISOC, but the showers show no sign of easing up completely and most of the festival-goers pull back to the campgrounds for a few hours, only to emerge reinvigorated and ready to rave and rock on into the night.   

Oka's cocktail of electronic, reggae, and world music brings a few rays of aural sunshine to the otherwise dark and drenched late afternoon. The drums are a little low in the mix for the most part, but the hard electronic beats drive a forceful heartbeat through the whirlwind of flutes, saxophone and didgeridoo.

Some fast footwork and re-organisation is put into effect and word is put out that most of the Jungle Boogie acts are being shuffled into the Mesmerism space for later sets, but before they wrap things up the collective of Mesmerism artists do what they do best and take audiences on the most intense sound journey heard all weekend.

After a stunning set last year, Omegachild returns to expand upon what he set in motion. This one-man band is minus the visuals he's usually seen with, but it doesn't stop him in the least bit from tearing the roof off with his simultaneous keyboard-drum wizardry. If anything, his sound is getting bigger and pushing deeper into zones of darkness, which invites an added sense of intrigue.  

The move to the Rejuvenatorium is a blessing for The Brains Trust. The environment locks in the atmosphere and allows their soulful sounds to penetrate the barriers of skin and reach right into the collective hearts of the crowd. Few words could ever do justice to something as uniquely manic and joyous as Monster Zoku Onsomb!'s live experience. They lay the theatrics on thick and push the absurdity right out the window. They start by monster-molesting a run of pop tunes before slamming back down to earth with their feisty brand of techno-punk that beats you over the head until you dance in fast-forward. It's an apocalyptic dance party and all your favourite B-grade horror stars are invited — oh, and there's tequila! 

No matter the stage, no matter the time or day, Vaudeville Smash always seem to be in the finest of forms and ready to deliver one of the most fun live shows going. Their incredibly uplifting, tongue-in-cheek brand of disco-funk is simply addictive. Laura, Driving Me Wild and Zinedine Zidane already feel like true classics, and tonight they set the crowd ablaze.

Each time Michelle Xen & the Neon WIld take the stage, they seemed to have matured and evolved their sound, and tonight is no exception. They are in their zone here, and Xen has never looked so confident on stage. It's a wonderland of lights, giant balloons, striking costumes, and pulsating tunes that push the final minutes to a joyous climatic peak.

As Jungle Love comes to a close for another year, there is a sense of awe across the whole grounds. Few festivals encapsulate the creative and cultural spirit of a time and place in quite the way this one does, and all who are involved seem richer in spirit for it. It has once again reaffirmed the potency of the creative soil in our own backyard and will leave many telling tales of what they've discovered for many months to come. Set the alarms and start to the countdown for 2017!