Video: Jungle, ‘Happy Man’ and ‘House in LA’

S.Lo on May 11th, 2018

0

What is happiness? British falsetto soul favorites Jungle (now revealed to be led by Shepherd’s Bush producing duo Josh Lloyd-Watson [“J”] and Tom McFarland [“T”]) pose this question in sonic splendor after moving to the Hollywood Hills and, having their California dreams shattered by the realities of Los Angeles, moving back to London to capture the self-questioning that ensued. This week, they’ve released two very different songs, “Happy Man” and “House in LA,” from their yet-to-be-named sophomore album. Released as a 12″ double-A-side single by XL Recordings, the JFC Worldwide-directed videos are also the visual debut of the full band lineup, including newest member Zangi, featured dancing in both.

“Happy Man” begins with the group engrossed in the classic escapist pastime of watching television. It can also be construed as an arms-distance observation of life playing itself out. However, what they’re watching (as danced by Zangi) is an expression of frustration and defiance with the status quo. That’s exactly what the song is about. What is the price of happiness? And is it fallacy that it can be bought or acquired in external things? J & T and band pose these important questions about the pursuit of elusive happiness against a deep funk bass and beat that you can escape in as you also ask yourself, “It all could be different / Try to do something new / I’ve given everything, oh to be a happy man, too / Buy yourself a dream, how’s it lookin? / Buy yourself a car and a house to live in / Get yourself a girl, someone different / Buy yourself a dream, and it won’t mean nothin.'”

“House in LA,” gorgeously shot at the Saddle Peak House in Topanga, is that house that theoretically fulfills one’s greatest dreams of “making it” in life. The downbeat song is an equally ravishing beauty of morphed layers of barely discernable vocals and backward motion shimmering synth layers, triumphantly expressed by Zangi dancing on the pebble-graveled roof in a white suit and chucks. Though again, happiness is hard to grasp, as Lloyd-Watson sings, “They asked me to stay / Oh God, in the hope that it could heal my pain / I feel alive in the sunlight / All my fears are only real life / Yeah, I feel alive in the sunlight now / Two whole years on the rewrite / Tell my friends I’m gonna be right there… Come to the haze / Lost in a camera and the whole night changed / Lost in LA…” Sounds like classic dream-chasing in the city of lost angels.

||| Watch: The video for “Happy Man”