Album Review: Emotional Junglist by Nia Archives
Written through a romance that ended with the police at her door, the Leeds junglist’s new album swaps rave euphoria for guitars, duets, and danceable tribulation.
Nia Archives had already been busy for five years working to bring jungle into British pop music, mixing ‘90s rave drums with Brazilian choirs and bits of Columbo dialogue, putting together unsigned bedroom producers at her Up Ya Archives club nights. The party girl in the middle of Silence Is Loud kept finding herself alone in the middle of crowded rooms, misunderstanding the rave she was hosting, and the hurt underneath those beats brought her 2024 debut album to the Mercury Prize shortlist. Emotional Junglist would come out of the full arc of one relationship, from the beginning to the end that is as messy as it gets, and she issued an advance warning to the purists in The FADER: “This is an alternative record. It’s not a jungle record.” She set herself the challenge in concrete terms, writing songs at tempos she never DJs at. She is the most alive when the sheets come off the bed.
The breakbeat drumming of “Danger” finds her promising to come right back, even if everyone hears her scream, spelling out her predicament letter by letter until she gets to “R is for I really, really, really, love you, don’t stop,” before she slips into a post-chorus of bubbles in the champagne and “sticky like honey.” “Vertical” makes the longing for another into weather, chasing his hurricanes, living in his bed, referring to herself as the river to his sea before she prays “You are the wave/And I pray you crash on me,” keeping her melodic vocals simple against chopped snare drum hits and rapid-fire kicks.
On “Around tha Bend,” she walks a tense guitar riff over breakbeats and throbbing bass, begging to get herself “around the bend and to the start,” waiting on the spirits to help her get away from her past and come out the other side a stranger to herself. Even in the more pop-oriented tracks, James Ford and Ethan P. Flynn keep the drums restless. “This Could Be…” has only bouncy keys and light footwork from Nia, walking home with “flower buds, blooms unopened,” four months away from falling, breaking her own rule for someone who might finally break her string of bad luck. She relaxes still more on “Dance With Me 2nite,” with its swinging bass line and shining guitar beneath a chorus of inviting “let hesitation sit this one out,” confessing love to be overrated until now, done with being beside herself after seeing so many people walk away.
Jorja Smith cools things off on “Get Me Down,” her voice twined around Nia’s over shuddering bass and delicate drum programming, both of them fixated on the same late-night temptation: “I like how you get me down/Call me when you’re coming round.” “Tender” is written at Sampha’s London studio, where Nia went in to produce and ended up singing lead vocals. The track keeps its minimal approach, piano upfront, as the two artists trade confessions back and forth. “Pretend to embrace fears, I know I’m fly,” Nia tells us, “But I am tender-hearted in spite of it all,” accepting her habit of withdrawal and isolation, while Sampha’s gentler answer makes the admission seem not so lonely.
She goes numb well before the relationship ever does, asking “What have I done” and answering herself with “Feelings go numb” over the fragmented snare samples of “Feelingz Go Numb,” and on “There Goes Ma Head” she loses herself, swears she isn’t paranoid, tells “Didn’t know I was so far gone/I was standing on the edge,” and wonders whether she’ll ever come down. There aren’t any drums on the icy “Almost Always,” where Nia grasps for straws, weeps and pleads until she has nothing left, and misses the version of herself she was with him. Her tears fall on “Tha Darkest Hour,” with dark synth pads and sharp drum bursts, as he realizes that she doesn’t belong and she rewinds herself, unable to silence her mind, mourning a man who has proved himself no more than a fleeting moment.
“Train of Thought” is almost nothing but one idea, her heart taking the train off with her lover’s carriage, and “Superlust” is even simpler, as Nia draws her lines out over shimmering synth textures until a kiss turns the two of them to dust. None of them skips, only a lull before the storm.
Waking up is the hard part on “Lovers Grief.” She would rather be asleep than do this again, drinking to forget it over gloomy indie-rock chord changes and quick drum hits, asking an ex how he can live with himself, whether he feels the big man now for watching her drown, then changing her style, her hair, trying to forget the part of her that cares. The man gets the full treatment on “Boys In Blue,” with all driving drums and heavy guitar riffs, written after the breakup became so ugly that, as she told The FADER, he called the cops on her. “So go ahead and call the feds,” she taunts, looking down at a man that she used to share a bed with that is now trying to get her arrested, then ending it with the fact that he will never take away from her—that she will never snitch and couldn’t anyway. She leaves the wreckage tough, witty, and tall, showing the world her ex where he stands with his blue boys.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “Around tha Bend,” “Tender,” “Boys In Blue”