Over the last few years, Nia Archives has been pushing the boundaries of what jungle can be. From sharing her early songs and remixes during her SoundCloud days in 2019 to releasing her Headz Gone West, Forbidden Feelingz and Sunrise Bang Ur Head Against tha Wall EPs in the following years, the 24-year-old Bradford-born artist has already covered plenty of ground as a producer, DJ and singer-songwriter in a relatively short timespan.
Her craft of taking rapid jungle breakbeats and boisterous U.K. rave rhythms and fusing them with elements of reggae, R&B, Britpop, and electronica brought her attention with singles like "So Tell Me…" and "Forbidden Feelingz." Both make an appearance on her debut album Silence Is Loud, a vulnerable documentation of navigating life in your 20s, littered with Archives's anxiety, family dynamics and romantic endeavours and mishaps. A debut that isn't afraid of getting personal and bearing loneliness for all to hear, Archives's joy is just as affecting as her turbulence.
Producer Ethan P. Flynn, who's worked with the likes of David Byrne, FKA Twigs and Jockstrap, lends his hands to the record, and Archives''s own production prowess and attention to detail is on full display. The low bass and soft strum of a guitar mingling with twinkling synths on "Cards on the Table'' beam with cheeriness and nostalgia, an atmosphere that carries over into subsequent track "Unfinished Business," but this time coated in a veil of bittersweet grit.
Archives's penchant for contrasting tones is no clearer than on "Crowded Roomz," a sweet melody tangled in social anxiety and a yearning for real connection: "In crowded rooms and I keep looking for closeness / Maybe I'll never get closure." Archives's bright, soulful vocals warmly envelope the chorus, and her signature breakbeat is the ideal vehicle to communicate the chaos of being the overwhelmed girl in the corner of the party. These breakbeats are often somewhat indistinct from one another, but act as an invisible string tying all these songs and the experiences within them together.
The latter half of Silence Is Loud ventures into colder territory; the steeliness of the aforementioned "Forbidden Feelingz" or the murky synths on "Blind Devotion" conveying trauma borne of love. The abrasive buzzing bass on "Tell Me What It's Like" grinds against Archives's depiction of a careless relationship,while the biting yet playful "Nighmares" finds her reading an ex for filth. The title track soars like a shooting star with its sharp beats and vibrant 8-bit trills, an ode to Nia's loving bond with her younger brother Zac. But "F A M I L Y," some of Nia's most personal storytelling on the album, reveals that not everything is functional when it comes to family. "Sometimes, family ties do not always survive / I don't identify with my f a m i l y" reads like a diary entry, confessed over a dark descending scale.
Whether it's the sing-songy Britpop and jazz on a song like "Out of Options'' or the contemplative soundtrack to a late night walk home on "So Tell Me…," Archives captures intense closeness and isolation, often at the same time in one song. Like her sound itself, Silence Is Loud has its staples, but diverges down countless different paths. Archives isn't just looking back and reflecting on scattered moments in life, but actively living through them — sometimes, she comes out the other side a little wiser.