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LI love one of the biggest songs of the year, by Olivia Rodrigo You look sad for a dear girlthe second full-length from the acclaimed “emotional junglist” Nia Archives is a two-part album. The first documentary in which its protagonist falls in love at breakneck speed; second, a stroke of sudden heartbreak. Unlike Rodrigo, Archives didn’t grow up as a star on the Disney Channel, a pre-planned path to success, but in Bradford, cutting his teeth on early 00s pirate radio, dancehall and indie radio.
More than most famous artists, Archives has created its own path. After leaving home at just 16 to move to a youth hostel in Manchester, he began teaching himself to make beats; Later, he moved to Hackney and studied music production, and used his student loan to finance his first self-released album. Since then, they have made history as the first electronic/dance act to win the Mobo in decades (having publicly campaigned for dance music to be included in the award in 2022). It is his first album of 2024 Silence Is Noisethey became the first series to be nominated for three Brit Awards, and the first to be nominated for a Mercury Prize since 1997 – before they were even born.
Emotional Junglist feels like the big sister of Silence Is Loud, with a more personal feel and a more artistic style. His music – broadcast from indie-pop and R&B and anchored within a frenzy of syncopated breakbeats – is sticky and flexible. It’s the Archives’ first time out with a full band, and the album’s heft shows it: you hear every bass, every cymbal, and soaring strings. And where Silence Is Loud paid homage to Britpop, Emotional Junglist finds a kindred spirit in the angst-ridden indie bands of the early 00s. Around tha Bend’s fierce but steady guitar would sound right at home in a Bloc Party song, while the breezy vibe of Dance With Me 2Nite could be mistaken for an early Arctic Monkeys cut (it’s no surprise to see the name of apes James Ford popping up on his record). The difference, though, is that they’re both backed by haunting music that shakes the DJ’s head – especially the old ones, where the relentless noises and choruses seem to swirl around menacingly.
Those who like Archives as a DJ without restrictions – check it out head mania of his PinkPantheress remix – may be disappointed to note that on this record, he’s not afraid to drop the BPM a bit and wear his heart on his sleeve. At times, it feels like they’re failing, especially on songs that sound like indie-pop: This Could Be… Superlust’s Blink feels more sleepy than the desire it ostensibly describes. But the second half of the album offers some of the best music from the Archives. The broken heart of Almost Always is a piercing, chilling song reminiscent of Dido or Natalie Imbruglia, while in Lovers Grief, she combines dark indie rock with heavy drums under her blunt, destructive lyrics: “I can sleep, but then I wake up and wake up again.”
Along with all the heartbreak, Emotional Junglist has some very painful moments. Danger came out of Rihanna’s ultra-secretive camp, where the Archives heard her fiery, devil-may-care offering so decided to keep it to herself. In it, they leave us with the neologism “pussi-blushing”, as well as a disturbing combination of X’s nursery rhymes and heavy-duty drums. Former collaborator Jorja Smith joins the R&B featherweight track Put me downthe song “u up?” a sound that combines the sound of shimmering vocals with throbbing bass. And if Smith is a good partner for the first half of the record, who else do you call Sampha for the heartache of the second half? South London’s king of soulful dance music joins the Archives on Tender, a moment-to-moment piano sound that conjures feelings of love.
Much has been made of the fact that the Archives is rare in a male-dominated culture – and she herself has described it as a “feminine-friendly” forest when it comes to thinking about it. But it would be an understatement to think of the Emotional Junglist as a “jungle of girls”. Instead, it is a larger and more visible project for gen Z that places the forest in conversation with many other species, writing a story in all of them. The fact that he – mostly – pulls it off so coherently makes the Archives a curator, a storyteller, and, dare you say it, a pop star.
This week Aimee listened
No – P4P
The London-based, French-Senegalese artist’s latest is a slice of sun-kissed music, with flutes and synths imitating birdsong.
