Live Review: Jungle, Fishing

Doug Wright and Russell Fitzgibbon of Sydney beat production team Fishing admitted to nursing ‘post-Splendour flus,’ and appreciatively accepted lozenges handed to them from an audience member who appeared to have the same Byron Bay-obtained illness.

Their set was a playful mix of spacey house and tropical techno touching on just about everything in between; beats were created using beat pads then looped around until they were almost unrecognisable.

Jungle emerged to a dimly lit stage hidden by smoke, as you’d expect from the London soul collective who have been shrouded in mystery since breaking out last year. The sounds of insects and leaves rustling with movement combined with increasing levels of suspenseful bass had the crowd screaming before Jungle set foot on stage. Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland, or J and T, are the visionaries behind Jungle, and filled Oxford Art with layered harmonies and brass synths. There were only five band members on stage from the everchanging collective, both J and T operating synthesisers, with T in control of lead guitar pointing it towards the sky and throwing it around like a glam-rock guitarist in the ‘80s. The falsetto vocals and short phrases felt like disco-era Bee Gees, a female vocalist adding a deeper voice and another dimension to the set.

The drum kit included a row of Coca-Cola bottles dangling next to the cymbal, an alternative to chimes, visually interesting but barely audible, and two outward-facing toms that J and T beat down on vigorously during the bridge breakdown of set highlight, Busy Earnin’.

They got through the majority of their self-titled debut album, gaining the biggest responses for Time and The Heat.

The encore lasted only one song, the effervescent Platoon, probably the only song in the set where the Coke bottle chimes had any effect. The sold out crowd loved it and were truly disappointed when it was all over.