Album Review: Jinja Safari - Jinja Safari

Having taken a recent trip to their Ugandan town namesake 'Jinja', Australian indie darlings Jinja Safari have released their self-titled and self-produced debut album. It's not difficult to detect the inspiration behind this energetic release. The album has been heavily influenced by a diverse range of world music, but the backbone is primarily African percussion and rhythm samples, the beats completely infectious while representing all things youthful and worldly. Jinja Safari themselves have described the unique tribal style as “forest rock”, and listening to the layers of percussion crash over each other amidst the joyous flute melodies they have created, it's difficult not to imagine such music being created somewhere in the depths of an isolated, speckled forest.

Despite the tracks being bound together by the Afrobeats and oriental samples, the lyrical content of the album is curiously diverse. There are tales of geographical wanderings and travellers: “In an old rice field/There's a broken path/And a hermit with eyes like yours” (Toothless Grin). There are voiced frustrations that accompany the coming of age process: “No one respects you when you're young/No one believes you when you're old” (Apple); “Old man I'm talking more like you/But there's nothing more you can do” (Bay Of Fires). Mombassa On The Line is a thoughtful insight into bridging cultural differences while, in stark contrast, Oh Benzo! describes personal experience with prescription medication addiction.

On first impression, Jinja Safari may strike you as being light-hearted, if not uplifting. Yet beneath the surface, the band has used its infectious music and detailed storytelling to explore some much darker concepts. It's a captivating album that deserves closer inspection.