Keep it rockin', doin' the same thing / And we get high on the breakdown

August 31, 2023 12:30 AM

Apparently the "infectious" choreography for Jungle's "Back on 74" has been going viral on TikTok, with everyone from the international touring cast of West Side Story to Emily Ratajkowski getting in on the trend, but I learned about it from this LA Times interview with Shay Latukolan, the choreographer, who has previously lent his talents to videos for Rosalía's "SAOKO" and Stormzy's "Vossi Bop".

UK duo Jungle has chosen from the very beginning to highlight choreography in their music videos, starting with 6-year-old B-Girl Terra breaking it down in "Platoon" (as seen nearly 10 years ago here on Metafilter) and the roller-skating magic of "The Heat". But in the video for "Busy Earnin'", the third single from their debut album Jungle, they first featured a larger ensemble of dancers. This became a signature element of the style you can see developing through videos such as "Heavy, California" and "Casio", off their follow-up album For Ever, where you'll start to see some familiar faces among the dancers including Will West and Mette Linturi.

Jungle's 3rd album, Loving in Stereo, seems to introduce more of an element of interconnectivity, with all of the videos filmed in the same location, an abandoned institution of some type. Standouts for me include "Keep Moving" and "Talk About It".

Now for their 4th album, Volcano, Jungle are apparently diving all in on asking Latukolan 'to choreograph the whole “Volcano” album as a short visual — a whole album with 14 one-shot music videos.' As Latukolan reports in the LA Times interview, "All these one-shots are part of a whole movie sequence. You see Will [West] wanting to be with Mette [Linturi] because they just broke up and you’ll see it in different parts of the movie. All these little stories come together so you understand why he’s walking and trying to reach for her." "Back on 74" is actually the 5th installment in this series, which started with "Good Times / Problemz" released back in 2022 and has continued through the videos for "Candle Flame", "Dominoes", and "I've Been in Love". Stay tuned for the next chapter!

posted by sigmagalator (11 comments total)

It's fitting that the West Side Story cast should cover it, as there's a definite nod to the finger-snapping Jets at around the 4:00 minute mark in the original video.
posted by Paul Slade at 3:09 AM on August 31, 2023

What a fabulous post. Thanks so much for putting it together, sigmagalator. That interview with the choreographer is great; love that he gives a shoutout to the Steadicam operator. Everything about this is awesome.
posted by mediareport at 3:53 AM on August 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Agreed that the Steadicam operator is a big part of the success of these videos. Both my kids are dancers, and the dance film genre really exploded during the pandemic, where dance companies experimented with (primarily outdoor) dance films to keep their audience engaged. This piece, performed by members of the New York City Ballet on the grounds of Lincoln Center in October 2020, springs to mind (the work itself is about 5 minutes long and the rest of the video is discussion about it).

I'm looking forward to seeing the Volcano film in its entirety to get the whole storyline.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 6:51 AM on August 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

Jungle did a live concert for Arte as part of their Passengers series (concerts recorded in Metro stations, I think?) that was my second introduction to the band. I'd never actually seen any of their music videos, so was unaware the had a whole dance thing going on.
posted by fiercekitten at 7:24 AM on August 31, 2023

I have watched these Jungle videos so many times. I came across “Keep Moving” when I was still mostly living in lockdown and I instantly picked up a new routine of watching an hour of their videos every couple nights to help decompress. If you load up their videos on YouTube it’s literally no skips for a couple hours now that Volcano is out. I recognized one of the dancers in Back on ‘74 and the other new videos from his appearance in Vossy Bop, another one of my favorite cheorographed videos, so I’m not surprised to learn that they share a choreographer. The costumes need a shout out too. There are lots of interesting silhouettes to see doing the same movements and creating different shapes.
posted by putzface_dickman at 7:54 AM on August 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

Semi-tangent: One of my favorite recent all-dance music videos is Nothing Left to Lose by (believe it or not) 90s folk/electronica duo Everything But the Girl, from their first new album in over 20 years.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:08 AM on August 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Thank you for this post! I've been a fan of Jungle's music for years but hadn't seen any of their videos. These are so amazing!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 8:30 AM on August 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

Thanks, sigmagalator! I love a concept album, & seeing it in this (perfectly matched!) team's videos is very cool.
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:56 PM on August 31, 2023

Oh man, I hadn't met "Back on 74" yet -- that was fantastic. Now to dive into Jungle's other dance videos.
posted by Quasirandom at 3:29 PM on August 31, 2023

That was great - and “infectious” is the perfect word for it, too (both the dance and the song). The opening choreography reminded me of this Fosse piece from a few years back, that someone set to Walk It Out.
posted by Mchelly at 6:53 PM on August 31, 2023

Great post. I had no idea their videos were so cool. Here is how I first discovered Jungle.
posted by liquid54 at 7:33 PM on August 31, 2023