Zanilonia is a virtual ensemble and the brainchild of Baltimore’s David Zee. We reviewed their single Bali Ha’i last month, a dark, digitalized reimagining of the song from the film South Pacific. This time we are taking a look at another single from Zanilonia – The Jungle Line (a cover of Joni Mitchell’s 1975 tune).
After discovering the electronic sub-genre of Jungle, David was inspired – partly for the sake of poetic irony – to fuse elements of its sound with a track that has long fascinated him. Using percussion-heavy drum samples, David brings a refreshed rhythmic-energy to The Jungle Line, which Joni originally sampled from a field recording of African drums. A menacing bassline fleshes out the groove and playful synth textures bring depth to what was a pretty sparse arrangement when it was originally released.
Zanilonia collaborator Anissa takes care of lead vocal duties, perfectly capturing the expressive melody and nailing the low-register notes. She is harmonized by David during most of the track and their two voices have a beautiful synergy as they carry the listener through the bar-rooms and alleys in the lyric.
This version captures all the brooding intensity of the original and David’s keyboard parts embellish the chord sequence in a very effective way. At the midway point, David changes up the drum loop to a four-on-the-floor dancehall rhythm which is textbook Jungle-House. This may sound like a million miles away from Joni Mitchell – and it is – but the truth is, it just works. Zanilonia have delivered some more of their unorthodox magic with this track. Go and give The Jungle Line a spin!
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BELOW: Listen to Jungle Line, and connect with their website and social media platforms. Please support Zanilonia by visiting them online, and playing, downloading, and/or purchasing their music, or attending a live show! And, as always, thank you for supporting real music!
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