Jinja Safari: From Sydney To Jamming In The Himalayas

The blissed-out sounds. The Afrobeat percussion. The more sun we're getting on our skin, the more Jinja Safari's music feels right. But as much as their refreshing blend of indie seems perfect for all that good summer gear, like road trips, barbecues, bonfires and early morning surfs, it goes a bit deeper than that – a bright, shimmering reflection of the inspiration and experiences behind the songs.

For it was with wide eyes and open ears that Jinja Safari founders Marcus Azon and Cameron 'Pepa' Knight explored foreign lands, and when the eccentric multi-instrumentalists returned with new tools and stories they released that unbridled energy into the band's first record.

“It's been pretty cool where we've got this project where we could go to these places and record samples from each place we went to and we got more of an understanding of where the sound we've been so influenced by, where it's coming from,” says Knight. “It has been a cool little experience being able to see these places and get a lot out of it.”

The locales were found off the beaten track and away from any sort of culture that resembled the life he and his fellow bandmates enjoy in Sydney. Travels throughout the African continent provided his running mate Azon with great scope for the record's lyrical content, and also allowed him to connect with the Ugandan township of Jinja – his grandmother's home and the place that spawned the band's name. For Knight, however, his soul was squeezed in the subcontinent.

“I spent a lot of time in India and I absolutely love the way they live over there; they live so simply over there. But everywhere I went, you heard this amazing traditional Indian music that had really crazy and complex rhythms and melodies, and the whole time you're there your head is just bursting with ideas. And being able to meet musicians in each place that we went to, and getting to record with them and getting some of those sounds on the album was a really cool thing.”

And even in sleepy towns and hidden villages, the power of a melody or the beat of a drum allowed Knight to share moments with locals that may not have blossomed otherwise. “The Himalayas where we went to, no one spoke English there so you're doing a lot of hand signals,” he recalls, “but when it comes to music it's like a universal language in a way, hey. It was nice just being able to enjoy each other's company and smile at each other and have a little jam.”

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