The Story of Jungle Jim’s
The Story of Jungle Jim’s
Jungle Jim’s as an idea is something I’ve been wanting to do for almost as long as I’ve been consistently making music. A concept album about my favorite store has been an idea of mine for a while, and especially given the fact I was from around where the only two locations were, it seemed fitting for my kind of music. I actually have a notes document with a bunch of ideas for song titles/concepts for albums which I’ve had for years, and one of the first things on it is “concept album about Jungle Jim’s.”
So naturally, I never got around to it until after I moved away.
Jungle Jim’s came at a weird point in my life. A lot of my albums I remember the process of making at least a little bit, but Jungle Jim’s was recorded at such a terrible era in my mental stability, I feel like my brain has blocked out a lot of the recording process. That, combined with the fact that I would be up for hours—until six in the morning sometimes—working on these songs, definitely does not help with the memory loss.
The bulk of Jungle Jim’s was recorded over spring break of 2025, with Wonderment and Discovery having been the only song not done in that time. I actually recorded it before any of the other ones, before I had an idea in my mind of what I wanted to do, and a lot of the direction and process can be linked back to that song in particular. It guided the production and style of the album as a whole.
The process of writing was weird, as a lot of the parts were either thrown together in a few hours (Wonderment and Discovery, Enter the Jungle), or had been worked on for months beforehand (Fish Section). I believe I had the parts for Wandering and Big Cheese for around a year until they were finally used.
But the formal recording of the parts didn’t really get rolling until I borrowed Robert Henry’s guitar, which was also around the time I started going into the music practice spaces of my dorm and playing piano late at night.
By the time recording started (and for the majority of the year, but the isolation made this worse), I was routinely cutting myself, drinking whatever I could get my hands on (thanks Ethan for keeping a bottle of liquor in your closet even when you were gone), and on the verge of suicide. I buzzed my head and went insane in my dorm room. My roommate was out, and I saw maybe one other person the entire break, so nobody could tell me what to do or when to be quiet. I would enter flow states of creation where I would play the same parts for hours at a time, getting them perfect, and neglect food, water, sleep, using the restroom, etc., until the songs were done. The only time I would eat would be when my hands would get too shaky to record the songs. The recording, from what little I remember, had a frantic energy to them, like if I didn’t get them done, I would collapse. I remember falling asleep for a few minutes while playing guitar at my desk, so I went to bed, woke up, and then continued recording.
This album was the first time I started experimenting with using piano on the tracks, which appears more as the album goes along and in the bonus tracks. The piano was recorded on my phone while listening to the songs on my computer, and then I had to time the playing of the piano to the track manually, so it all sounded cohesive. A similar thing happened with the drum tracks. Although I recorded to a metronome most of the time, I rarely recorded to the drum machine, meaning that the starts/stops had to be done manually. I would spend an hour or two with the drum machine pressing start at the beginning of each two-bar phrase.
All of the tracks were recorded on overdubbed tapes on my karaoke machine, directly inputting all instruments through and not running any amps. I would record the base layers, usually drums and guitar or bass, and then put that tape into the other side of the machine, and record onto a new tape while recording the contents of the previous tape. I would repeat this process until the song was done. This is why a lot of the drums are inaudible on the album, because they kept getting buried under continuous layers of instruments.
By the time spring break was wrapping up, I was basically finished with the album, and deathly afraid that everything I had agonized over was just dogshit. Even though I had been writing a lot, I had totally lost faith in myself as a musician. I had other parts for more songs on the album, but they hadn’t been developed much. I figured the album was as done as it would ever be, but I had no clue what the hell to even do with it, as I didn’t feel confident enough to release it. It wasn’t until I sent some files to Rob that I started to change my opinion on the album, because he praised it quite highly, and I trust Rob’s judgement. After its release, it got more positive reception than any other album I have ever made, more attention than any of my music up to that point. This gave me enough confidence to send it to two labels (although this was unsuccessful) and burn CDs of it. Jungle Jim’s is still a favorite for many people, and although at first I thought this was a sad thing–considering it sounds nothing like the rest of the BasementDwellers catalogue–I came around to appreciate this support.
To date, Jungle Jim’s is probably my favorite project I’ve ever done. I like to see it as a sort of “living album”–something which will have secret tracks added to it for as long as I make music. With each time it is rereleased on physical, there are more tracks which appear with the regular lineup, to the point where I always forget which tracks have been released and which haven’t. While I wish it came about under better circumstances, I think it helped give my life purpose for a short amount of time, and was likely a contributing factor to keeping me alive last year, especially after the positive reception upon its release. It’s also allowed me to spread the gospel of Mr. Jim far and wide.
Quite literally, the release of this album helped save my life.
So, thank you all. You keep me going.
Fun facts:
The sample at the beginning of Grandest Shopping Adventure is from a video Sam took when I was back for the winter in 2024-25. It’s from the Fairfield Jungle Jim’s, in the England section.
Most of the album, with the exception of Wonderment and Discovery, is pitched lower than how it was recorded. This is because the cassette player I was using to convert the tapes to digital fucking sucked, or maybe something with Audacity, really I have no idea. The only reason Wonderment and Discovery is different is because I recorded it straight from the speaker on my karaoke machine.
Concurrent to the recording of this album, I also recorded a slowcore EP which has yet to be released.
All of the original instrumentals are lost now due to the nature of the recording process. But this is okay.