Jungle, emotions, a female gaze: A conversation with Nia Archives

Ever since her debut album Silence Is Loud, Nia Archives has officially established herself as one of the most exciting voices in UK-Jungle today. Growing up in Leeds, music was practically in her blood from the start – her stepfather, a producer and rapper himself, taught her how to use production software, and her grandmother hosted her own radio show in Bradford, through which Nia was introduced to everything from jungle to R&B. So it’s no surprise that as a teenager, she fell in love with the world of breakbeats herself. Over the years, this paved the way for her own musical signature: a cocktail of various genre influences, the emotionally unhinged inner life of a woman in her mid-twenties, and, of course, jungle beats. Crying on the dance floor – but make it a person.

On her second album, Emotional Junglist, Nia shifts her musical focus slightly away from the rave and a bit more toward indie. Lyrically, however, she stays true to the album title’s promise and tells the story of a failed relationship – including the initial phase of falling in love, the crashout, and the painful breakup. The result is an album that essentially feels like a loving conversation with a stranger in a club bathroom, while the bass still thumps from the next room. We spoke with her before the release.

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Let’s start off light. Your new album comes out this week, how do you feel?
Nia Archives: Ummmm, I don’t know anymore (laughs). I guess nervous, excited, all the emotions.

Emotions – That’s very fitting for the album title. Is it different this time to when you released your debut album?
Definitely, yeah. I feel like second albums are really tough, whereas the first album was just really fun and innocent. Compared to this album, I feel like I’m gonna get a lot of criticism and just a lot of opinions versus the first one where I felt I didn’t get that many people’s opinions, you know? I’m excited for people to listen to the project in full because it doesn’t feel like a singles record. It feels like an actual album that you need to listen to together together, you know?

Absolutely. I had the pleasure to listen before the release and it sort of feels like a new era for you. It’s colorful, it’s fun, it’s girly and it feels a little more alternative than Silence Is Loud did. How did your approach to music and your creative process change between these two albums?
Yeah, I mean I definitely feel like it’s a lot more alternative and weird compared to the first one. The first one was quite weird but it was still quite safe, I think. And this one is me kind of pushing the boat out. My process has changed because I’m collaborating more with people and I’ve not been as much of a control freak on this project. I’m actually making songs in the room rather than preparing stuff before I went in with Ethan [P. Flynn, producer of, among others, David Byrne and FKA Twigs – Ed.]. This time I’m making it up as I go and it’s been really great to work with the people I work with, because it has helped me grow as an artist and producer as well.

What made you want to come out of your comfort zone? What changed?
I feel like you either keep innovating and evolving or you just stay stagnant and I feel like as a person I always wanna keep pushing the boat out and keep it pushing, keep it moving. Rather than just keep making the same song over and over again. I think that’s why I wanted to try something new.

I feel like you can really feel that with the album. It’s pretty obviously inspired by your own personal experiences and feels vulnerable. What does it mean, for you personally, to be an Emotional Junglist?
: So this is something I’ve been saying here and there for the past few years: the music I make is Emotional Junglist Music. It’s not traditional, it’s not purist music. But for as much as I think Emotional Junglist is a sound I also feel like it’s kind of an identity. I feel like I am an Emotional Junglist, it’s my essence. Emotional Junglism is not necessarily about being a hardcore jungle raver, I think it’s more about the spirit, similar to the punk movement. Not everyone who is a punk is actually listening to punk music. Sometimes it’s just a persona, an ideology, a way of life.

To me it sounds like it’s also about being vulnerable and badass and making art out of your emotions. I feel like that really shows on the album.
Thank you.

You’re very welcome. Other than music, how do you deal with your emotions?
Ummmm, I like smoking cigarettes and drinking tequila.

Slay.
That’s kind of my trio: Music, cigarettes and tequila.

What emotions inspire you most? And why?
It sounds pessimistic but obviously sadness and more negative emotions are easier to make music out of because I think that it’s easier to moan about life than to celebrate it. It’s so easy to take happiness for granted. So it’s harder to write happy songs. Weirdly on this album there were quite a lot of happy songs. But I think that sometimes it kind of cringes me out to be so uplifting and positive (laughs). I think I definitely prefer to write about more negative emotions.

You can really feel that with the first half of the album being a lot more lovey dovey and happy, and the second being more sad and pessimistic. Sometimes that’s a natural progression of emotions. Are there any other emotions you would like to explore musically? I have yet to hear a song from you that’s about rage.
Yes! That’s what I want to do next. I feel like I am not an outwardly angry person. But there’s ways to get buzzed up and raged without being angry or aggressive. That’s something I definitely want to explore in my next project.

Interesting, I would like to hear that. What else in life inspires you, besides your emotions?
I’m really into music history and what has been before, to figure out what I’m gonna do next. Just looking back at what my favorite artists from the 90s have done, that really inspires me. Obviously like Goldie, The Prodigy, Massive Attack.

»I think working with women on this project and being around women during the process has given it this female gaze that I was aspiring to achieve.«
Nia Archives

Jungle and drum and bass in general are having a huge comeback the last few years. You definitely play a part in that. What other reasons do you think there are for fast, electronic dance music to be back in the mainstream?
I think music works in cycles. So it has been thirty years since jungle was created. And for it to come back thirty years later and have its mainstream moment I think makes sense. Similar to how Speed Garage was kind of a big thing last year. The music world just comes back around because all of the great ideas have already been done. There has not been a new genre in dance music for ten years. People are looking back at what we have done and how we can make it fresh now. And people making pop music out of that makes it have its commercial music.

I saw that you said with this album you want to feminize jungle music. I was wondering what that meant to you personally and why it’s important for you?
I think there is a lot of feminine music in jungle already, but I think I just wanted to do it from my point of view as a woman in my 20s. I think women will be able to relate to it. It really does feel like a mid twenties canon event diary album, that a lot of women have experienced or are going to experience. In terms of the creative, I really wanted it to be the female point of view. So I only worked with women on the creative and if there was any man involved it was a woman working alongside that man. I just felt like a guy couldn’t get into the brain of an unhinged woman the way another woman can. My friend Iris shot the cover and I literally look so unhinged in it. But in a beautiful way. I think working with women on this project and being around women during the process has given it this female gaze that I was aspiring to achieve.

As a fellow woman in my mid 20s, that really resonates. Great job. It’s rough out here.
It is.