JINJA SAFARI
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With Cub Sport
UOW Unibar
Thursday, August 19
Tickets: bigtix.com.au
Jinja Safari scoured the world, mining sounds and capturing moments for their debut album, harnessing the energy that comes from young men travelling with barely a care in the world.
"It's a really nice notebook to listen back to," lead singer Marcus Azon says of the LP.
"Individually, lyrically and musically, it's lots of different ideas of where we were, of what we were thinking about and enjoying at the time."
Jinja Safari entered the collective consciousness of the Australian music-loving public after being handpicked from obscurity to play at the Splendour In The Grass festival in 2010. Since then, the Sydney band's eclectic and hugely energetic brand of world-inspired folk-rock has seen them rise from small-time indie upstarts into one of the country's most exciting and popular young bands.
Sold-out tours and a few highly-praised EPs followed. The group temporarily went their separate ways before - and while - recording the self-titled album, further adding to the patchwork of world-inspired sound.
"It's about having a modern take on traditional music, trying to recreate an organic sound again from those cultures," Marcus says.
The group filtered across the globe, splitting time between India and Cambodia and Indonesia and Europe, the Himalayas and the Nile river. As they went, they recorded and mined ideas - field recordings were made with iPad apps, music files were sent during long plane trips, and the album gradually began piecing itself together despite the band itself being separated by thousands of miles.
"And that's what was so ironic, using computers and electronic samplers and synths and electric guitars and midi drums to create something that reflected traditional sound," Marcus says.
"I think it is our God-given right to make noise and sound. People have been playing traditional music for thousands of years. Maybe that's the ethos of our whole group, to get back that simple life."
It is no idle talk. To watch Jinja Safari play live is less of a concert than an experience. Their recordings hold up well, but it is the live arena where Jinja Safari truly prove their worth.
"That's our bread and butter," Marcus says.
"Connecting with audiences is the most important thing for us. "
Illawarra fans will get a chance to do just that this week, as Jinja Safari play the UOW Unibar tomorrow.
They stop into town as part of their Bay Of Fires tour, and Marcus has a few surprises.
"The most exciting thing for us is this visual projection that we've wanted to do for years and finally created," he says.
"It's a full-length feature film for the live show. Footage for each song reimagines the music, and makes people reinterpret the way they hear the music. Images with music, it's a totally different feeling."