Introducing: The Mamelodi Voice

For those of you who don't know, I'm currently doing my Honours in Journalism. Every year the programme brings out The Mamelodi Voice, a newspaper for the community of Mamelodi, which is a township near Pretoria. This is the third edition that I am working on (previous as a copy editor and a layout artist) and this year I am super excited to be at the helm as editor. The 2013 edition will be printed in July, so I've decided to keep you updated on this here blog about the progress we make as we put the paper together.

Here are some photos when I was in Mamelodi on Tuesday.

Entering Alaska, one of the poorer areas in Mamelodi East.

Alaska.

Beautifully painted shacks outside Viva Village in Mamelodi.

Hair salon. There are lots of these.

Good Morning, Sunshine- Shortstraw (Official video)

The lovely Shortstraw have released their music video for "Good Morning, Sunshine", the title track off their second album.

I interviewed the band on Friday, so watch this space for the article (and a review of their album) which will be out in Perdeby next week.

Sons of Settlers take the scenic route to stardom

This article was originally published in Perdeby on 13 May 2013. 

                                                                                                                                                   PHOTO: Christelle Duvenage

Train. Gig. Drive. Gig. Drive. Gig.

Sons of Settlers are on their Playing The Fool Tour, a double-headlining endeavour with friends and fellow Cape Town musicians Holiday Murray. They decided to take a train that snakes all the way up north to Gauteng, choosing to ditch the airport drama for a scenic cross-country view and loud impromptu carriage jam sessions instead.

They’ve stopped at Park Acoustics on the Pretoria leg of their tour and, as the first act on the bill, Sons of Settlers delivered a lush, pop rock-laden set complete with the odd scattering of folk. It’s the perfect start to the day, despite two of the strings on lead vocalist Gerdus Oosthuizen’s guitar, Olivia, breaking.

Afterwards, they head to where the comedy show will later take place. Bassist Ryno Buckle, who his band mates affectionately call “Buckle”, flops onto the small stage like a rag doll. He’s the unlucky one who was tasked with driving the 600 km from the band’s gig in Durban the night before.

“Next time we’ll do it by boat,” jokes Oosthuizen. 

“Yes, I think so. Play coastal towns and then take the boat inland,” agrees lead guitarist Leroi Nel in jest. 

“We talk a lot of crap,” adds drummer Justin “Bossie” Bosman, almost apologetically.

Truth is, Sons of Settlers never intended on sharing their music with anyone when they began making tunes. It all came together when Oosthuizen (former lead guitarist of spacey indie rock outfit New Holland) and Nel (former lead vocalist of the wildly popular Afrikaans classical prog rock band Foto na Dans) would hang out and jam after yoga practice. Buckle (also of New Holland fame) had been playing in various bands with Oosthuizen since they were kids and joined them soon afterwards.

The trio’s previous bands were winding down and they were all looking for a much-needed creative outlet. After coming up with a few basic riffs, they decided to add a drummer to the mix and make it official. That’s where Bossie came in.

Were they worried about reintroducing themselves to audiences who already associated them with their previous bands?

                                                                                 PHOTO: Christelle Duvenage

“Not at all,” says Nel, followed by a synchronised “I don’t care” from the rest of the band.“There wasn’t an intention [to make our music public], so there wasn’t any pressure. There was no pressure to be launched as something new, or something different. We were enjoying what we were doing and thought that people would enjoy it too,” Nel explains.

Oosthuizen says that with their previous projects their measure of success involved certain things like getting a slot at Oppikoppi or getting nominated for a SAMA. Sons of Settlers, he says, is already successful. 

“Our success has been the fact that we have been able to play together, and have the union that we have on stage, and have the great experience that we do. We are already winning,” he says.

The foursome is very close to completing their debut album, which they’re looking at releasing in July. They’ve taken a totally DIY approach to it, starting with recording all the tracks at Oosthuizen’s parent’s house in Onrus, something Bossie says allowed the band to capture an energy that sounds better than if they were pressed to get everything done in a regular studio.

Sons of Settlers also chose to combine recording the album live with working on it in studio. This way, Oosthuizen maintains, the album has a temporal aspect to it. “You’ve got this real, organic, live, breathing thing but you can pretty it up and still buff it up,” he says.

When it comes to lyrical themes, Sons of Settlers say they touch on a couple of main ideas, but their first offering is in no way a concept album. Oosthuizen went through a break-up during the process of creating the album, which is reflected in songs like “Former Lover”. There are also the less amorous tracks which deal with how the band sees society working or not working.

“Something we brought up a lot is a consumerist society, the unsustainability of the way that the system is going,” explains Oosthuizen. 

Other songs are more frivolous though, like “I Know That You Want Me”, a song which consists entirely of the lyrics “I want your body / It makes me do karate / I know that you want me”.

Nel says that the collective concept that in some way ties the album together is self-empowerment. “The way we perceive things and the way we separate ourselves from it and we don’t necessarily agree with it, and that we don’t necessarily need it to feel like ourselves,” he says.

“I think the people that are most excited to have this record in their hands are these guys sitting right here,” adds Oosthuizen, looking at his band mates.

So where to next for Sons of Settlers? “We actually have a bunch of songs that we didn’t get to finish in time for this album and we were talking about it. We’re not tired of this set, but it’s time to move on. We’re not planning on riding this wave and seeing where it goes. We’re writing some kiff stuff now,” Oosthuizen says.

And the rest of the tour?

Break. Gig. Train.

The return of Holiday Murray

 This interview was originally published in Perdeby on 13 May 2013.

                                                                                                                                                PHOTO: Christelle Duvenage

“With any creative relationship, it requires some time to get perspective. That’s definitely made us realise how important it is to play music together and also to give us time to soak up more inspiration.”

Holiday Murray’s bassist Chris Carter is talking about the Cape Town band’s six-month hiatus, a sabbatical of sorts, while he ventured off to India for a while.

Soak up inspiration they did, and now, with mysterious Tanzanian stick man traveller Murray in tow, and a 600 km journey through the night from Durban behind them, they are at Park Acoustics. Arms woven together, the band huddles ritualistically before taking to the stage.

What’s the huddle all about? “It’s a secret,” says lead guitarist Justin Davenport later with a mischievous smile. “Something happens.”

Whatever it is, the foursome delivers a labyrinth of intricate sound, a declaration of intent, an invitation to go on an illusory journey.

Their particular journey started when the band released their self-titled debut album in 2011. Two years later, Holiday Murray is five tracks into their follow-up release. The band is toying with the idea of recording two EPs this time around, with the money from the first one intended to fund the second. A limited vinyl edition is also on the cards.

“I think it’s going to be a double-headed album and we want to look at the interplay between two different styles,” explains Davenport.

                                                                          PHOTO: Christelle Duvenage

The band wants to delve into two worlds with these different styles, the one exploring a velvety, complex sound while the other dips into a bigger, boisterous, rock ‘n’ roll one. “We’re still exploring, we’re just playing. We’re not too serious. We’re still young,” says Davenport.

                                                                           PHOTO: Christelle Duvenage

They’re recording their new material with producer TeeJay Terblanche at his Coffee Stained Vinyl Studios in Cape Town, but they are thinking of experimenting with their own recording methods too. The band is still throwing around the idea of

having a more produced sound with bigger, edgier songs and then taking a DIY approach to the rest of the material.

Either way, they are steering their sound into a direction quite different from the one that their immensely popular first song “Jirey” pushed them into.

“It’s not necessarily that we don’t want to make happy music, but there are a whole range of devotions and ideas that we want to come through that aren’t just happy-go-lucky, make-you-dance music,” explains Carter.

“As different as it is to us, it might be different to other people and that’s cool. We want to keep on surprising people. We’re going to continue making music that makes us happy and if it makes other people happy, then it’s an absolute bonus,” says drummer Ellis Silverman.

When it comes to lyrical content, Davenport says, Holiday Murray’s music has always been quite metaphorical. A lot of the time it gets lost in the spaces between the band’s multi-layered sound.

“We talk about a lot of things that have relevance to us and the way we see the world,” says Davenport. “They often come out quite ...”

 “... abstract,” offers Carter.

Overall, though, Holiday Murray have never chosen to tackle any specific topic through their music. “It’s just a journey of words and poetry,” says Davenport.

And to finish this new journey that they are embarking on, they are heading back home to Cape Town. Rather unconventionally, they’re doing so by train.

“The scenery is absolutely unbelievable,” says Silverman. “The number of times you look out into the absolute nothingness and just think, ‘F**k!’ That’s all you really think. Well I do, at least.”

“I had a few deeper thoughts,” retorts Carter comically. “I bet you did. Do you care to share?” says Silverman looking back at him.

“Not really,” is the reply he gets.

“Fine.”

Watch a live performance video of Holiday Murray playing two of their new songs at Kirstenbosch in Cape Town, courtesy of we-are-awesome. 

 
BOOTLEG | Holiday Murray - Live at Kirstenbosch from we-are-awesome on Vimeo.

The Shining Girls: Beukes's constellation of murder

This review was originally published in Perdeby on 6 May 2013.

A tweet about a time-travelling serial killer is the saucy idea behind Lauren Beukes’s new novel. After her lightbulb moment, the darling of South African modern fiction quickly deleted the tweet and promptly got to work on The Shining Girls. 

Set in Chicago, it tells the story of Harper Curtis, a twisted, despicable sort of man who stumbles upon a house that allows him to travel through time. He uses it to stalk and kill “the shining girls”, women who beam gloriously with potential. 

When one of his victims survives, Harper’s plan unravels horribly. With the help of cynical sports hack Dan Velasquez, gutsy Kirby Mazrachi doggedly tries to find the man who almost took her life and she won’t let anything stop her. What ensues is a grim, disturbing tale about a serial killer’s insatiable bloodlust and what happens when the roles of the hunter and the hunted become violently entangled. 

Each chapter of The Shining Girls is told from a different person’s perspective, providing a ticket to the inner workings of every character’s mind. We learn that the kooky Kirby is deeply frayed by her kiss with death and this triggers her unrelenting mission to find her would-be killer. Beukes offers another strong female protagonist, much like the flawed Zinzi December in Zoo City, who ultimately displays quite heroic and admirable qualities. 

Lauren Beukes reading an extract from The Shining Girls. 

In this way, we also co-inhabit Harper’s perverse mind. This insight into what makes him tick and what fuels his killing spree through the decades offers a refreshing take on the archetype serial killer because Harper is in no way glamorised. Throughout the novel, there is no doubt that he is an appalling human being and this makes him all the more frightening. 

Similarly, the deaths of Harper’s victims aren’t glamorised either. Beukes devotes at least one chapter to each victim, which allows their minds to be interrogated. The focus is more on their lives and what made them shine, rather than their grisly deaths. 

At the heart of it, The Shining Girls is a novel about violence against women and how this violence has a ripple effect through a community, even though the extent to which it is a socially corrective can be debated. It’s a novel that reflects who we are and interrogates the present by transporting us to an alternate world that is, in many ways, not too different from our own. This is perhaps a difficult pill to swallow, but The Shining Girls is the sweet spoonful of sugar that helps the bitter medicine go down.

The Hollow Body: Johannine review

This review was originally published in Perdeby on 15 April 2013.

***

                                                                                                                          COVER ART: photo taken by Luca Vincenzo

“You say drinking from my cup feeds your soul/ Fills you up/ If drinking from my cup makes you whole/ Then why did you stop?” croons Cape Town folk musician Jonathan Velthuysen gently on “Holly (You Gotta Wonder)”. His almost puzzled delivery of the last line is moving, as if through his subtle probing, he is trying to make sense of the unexpected end of a relationship.

It is piercingly personal lyrics like this that take centre stage on Velthuysen’s debut album Johannine and for his first offering, the man who goes by the name of The Hollow Body has put together a collection of songs that is stripped down of all pretence and treated, instead, with layers of intensely personal reflection.

Together with his scratchy, sometimes nasal voice and the sparse musical accompaniment provided by the warm, rollicking strum of his guitar, Velthuysen delivers an album that will more than delicately tickle the fancy of folk lovers.

The thing is, Velthuysen’s lyrics aren’t just unabashedly honest. They are delicately crafted words of poetry too and he uses this songwriting process to purge himself of all the things that life has thrown at him.

“Hymnal Retreat” is a tender elegy written for Velthuysen’s father who passed away some years ago. The uncluttered intro sees him admitting that he is weighed down by the sorrow that he carries on his shoulders and the misery on his brow and that he doesn’t know if he can move forward. His solution? “And maybe someday/ Through these lullabies/ I’ll see clearly my way back home,” he intones gingerly before the track becomes more jaunty as the pace quickens.

On “For Tonight”, Velthuysen’s voice echoes that of The Tallest Man on Earth as he sings about the intoxicating and sometimes dangerous hold that someone can have on you, while on “Don’t Mistake It”, he lowers his voice to a soft, low purr that breaks into an impassioned plea at the climax.

Johannine is the kind of album that you want to listen to in a steaming bath with a glass of wine. It’s the kind of album that stops being just a collection of songs as it begs you to engage with it. It’s the kind of album that allows you to mould your own meaning around this phrasing or that guitar growl. In fact, it’s the best kind of album.

RATING: 8/10

Read the interview I did with The Hollow Body here. 

The Hollow Body: "I need to sing songs to remind me, to remind me of everything."

The Hollow Body at Arcade Empire                                                                                  PHOTO: Hendro van der Merwe

There’s a biting chill in the air at Arcade Empire’s acoustic evening. As is starts raining, the few people who were sitting at tables outside flee indoors for cover. Those who were lucky enough to avoid the downpour are talking noisily over cheap beer.

The chatter becomes an irritating buzz that competes with Jonathan Velthuysen’s soothing drone as he takes to the small, sparsely lit stage in the corner. The indifferent audience doesn’t seem to bother him as he moves his broad shoulders this way and that, tilting his head back slightly, feeling every note that he effortlessly strums on his guitar.

Velthuysen has been having a fiery love affair with the instrument strapped around his shoulder for many years. Flickers of it may have started when he picked up his mom’s old Hofner guitar at the age of 13, but this relationship permanently changed after he came across one guitar in particular while living in Scotland.

“It was just a phenomenal guitar,” says a slightly reserved Velthuysen, his admiration for the string instrument still evident. “It made me realise how average I actually was at playing instrumental music and it also inspired me to start singing.”

When he returned to South Africa in 2009, Velthuysen did just that. He formed a folk rock band called Stepdog, which released an EP called Amy After Dark in 2010. The band enjoyed a pinch of success but eventually broke up. Velthuysen wanted to go it alone, so he dubbed himself “The Hollow Body” and steered his sound in the bare, unfussy direction of folk music.

“I’m not very comfortable with pretending and I find that [folk] is one genre that I can write in, sort of as an idiom,” he says. “I can just be who I am and sing what I want. It’s just easier.”

At the same time, Velthuysen also began learning how to build guitars under master luthier JA Tredoux, founder of the Stellenbosch Guitar Company. It’s an incredibly long process to build a guitar, says Velthuysen. He has spent the last two years learning how to craft the instrument and will more than likely still be an apprentice for the next five years, depending on how quickly he can perfect his skills.

“There are a lot of finer things that take a lot of time to get a feel for. When it comes down to it, a lot of it is problem solving because things don’t always turn out the way you want and then you have to improvise. That takes a long time to learn,” explains Velthuysen.

                                                         PHOTO: Hendro van der Merwe

The very guitar that he performs with is the first one that he made. Velthuysen had an idea of what he wanted to do but being a novice, he didn’t quite know what he was going to come out with. He says: “It took me a couple of months to come to terms with what I had created. It’s like anything, you gotta get used to it. It’s a very unique guitar and it sounds good.”

Velthuysen also used his self-made guitar to record his debut album as The Hollow Body. Johannine is an album which allows his rough, scratchy voice to explore how he has come to terms with several events that have drastically shaped his life.

“It’s just a collection of moments of inspiration. And also, some of it is just a painful reflection on it,” he says of the intensely personal nature of his lyrics. The painful reflection Velthuysen is referring to is the death of his father in 2005 and the ending of a serious relationship not long afterwards.

Is songwriting a cathartic process for Velthuysen, then? “It’s essential, absolutely essential. That’s why I do it,” he says. “My motivation isn’t that people are going to like it, really. I’m always happy if people do but I just find that I need to do it. I’m not comfortable with not doing it. I tried it.” 

Velthuysen is speaking of a time when he thought that he would get another job and just play music on the side as a hobby. “I just found it very, very hard to stay balanced. I need to sing songs to remind me, to remind me of everything.”

Read my review of The Hollow Body's debut album, Johannine, here.