Category Archives: Afrikaans

Silent Night / Stille Nag by Johannes Kerkorrel and the Kalaharisurfers

During the turbulence and noise of the late Johannesburg 80’s I had a notion to do a very strongly atmospheric/satirical Christmas Carols Album using the artists from the Shifty label. A sort of political Christmas skeefness. The idea was that these tunes from our own sensibility would provide us with a background music that shops could play to replace the BonyM albums each year … and also to have a bit of fun subverting the well worn old melodies. Ralph here gave such a great performance that I felt it was too good for satire. Its real Christmas in teargas city. You can almost feel the melancholia we felt each year living in the shadow of the beast….so here we are something for the shocking stocking
merry chrysalis
Warrick Sony

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DIE NAAIMASJIENE

This patchwork of poetry, anti-establishment rants, kewl tunes and other madness is best described by briefly quoting the liner notes. Above the list of people not allowed to listen to this album and alongside a copy of the 1997 semi-unbanning letter from the Publications Board, is this sentence: ” ‘Die Saai Lewe’ is nie ‘n konvensionele pop- of rockalbum nie. Dit is ‘n psigedeliese soap opera in negentien episodes”. Says it all, but what does it sound like? It’s certainly not conventional rock but it has a rich and deep (sometimes gloomy) presence. One of those albums for rainy nights, candles, red wine, and that new bankie.

The album’s basic theme reflects its creator Theunis Engelbrecht’s alienation from the Afrikaaner way of life in the ’80s and early ’90s. He also preffered adding music and “soundscapes” to his poetry instead of publishing them for students and academics, a similar situation that pushed Koos Kombuis into his musical career. Here, in tandem with guitar and studio guru Willem Moller, Engelbrecht touches on a wide selection of styles (blues, rock ‘n roll, folk) and a strange brew of sounds and samples to create one of the most original, absorbing and enjoyable SA albums of the nineties. Ruben Samuels (drums) and Hanepoot van Tonder (trombone) played on some of the tracks and Spiral Staircase, a band from Pretoria, worked on the four new tracks added here. Songs? I’m not even going to mention or describe any specific songs, it would do this “konsept’ album a disservice and spoil the surprise. ‘Die Saai Lewe’ is a 19-song, old and new South African album that will stay fresh, interesting and cool for a long time, and that’s a cold fact.

Stephen “Sugar” Segerman 8/10

credits

released 01 January 1989

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RIGTINGBEFOK – DIE LEMME

 

download here

 

Arno Carstens, Paul Riekert , Francois van Coke, Valiant Swart ,Chris Letcher, Albert Frost , Max Mikula , Kenan James , The Trees ,Nux Schwartz,  Ampie Omo, Willem Moller , Jannie van Tonder , Nechama Brodie, Rian Malan  Lloyd Ross, the Kalahari Surfers ,Toast Coetzer Frank Opperman ,Neil Fishwick, Warrick Sony, Willim Welsyn , Robin Auld , Victor S. Wolf, Tonia Selley , Kathy Raven,  Rob Nagel ,Sannie Fox, Andre Geldenhuys,

the Gereformeerde Blues Band and  The Radio Rats

 
 
 
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Die Lemme

sundaythemorninggiantmutantsquidmix

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namakwalanddaisychainmix

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corrugated iron

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Screen shot 2013-09-20 at 10.43.48 PM

the first of a batch of new recordings  by Piet Pers featuring various South african musical talents:

Max Mikula – guitar (left),

Albert Frost – guitar (right),

Janus van der Merwe – tenor sax,

Rusty Stanley – bass, Andrew Cleland – drums,

Chris Letcher – piano, organ, Wurlitzer, production.

go here  to get it

biog:

Gary Herselman (alias Piet Pers, Bokkie Buys etc) is a South African singer and songwriter.

Gary first came to prominence in the late 1980’s at a time when a real protest-music culture emerged from the Afrikaner community in South Africa. The sentiments articulated by these artists resonated with what a lot of young South Africans were feeling and the popularity of the music grew exponentially. This “movement” had a name: Voëlvry, and it was born at Shifty Records’ home-studio, south of Johannesburg.

Gary had a trio around this time, The Kerels, that used to perform at Jameson’s in downtown Johannesburg alongside James Phillips and the Cherry Faced Lurchers. The Kerels released their debut, “Ek Se” in 1988, on Shifty Records and a year or so later the landmark Voëlvry compilation album was released and a tour to promote the album was  undertaken. Gary was by then the bass player for Johannes Kerkorrel’s Gereformeerde Blues Band and was renowned for wearing tiny rugby shorts onstage, irrespective of the weather.

Sometime after the Voëlvry tour, Gary invented a “whisky sodden ou” who he called Archie Pelago and in 1991 the Archie Pelago album, “City Country” was released on Underground Records. Gary referred to it as having been “made with mostly bubble gum and elastoplast.” As he put it in his as yet unpublished memoir: – “As far as songs in the traditional sense of the word go, I think some of my best ones appear on that cassette. Of course it’s all heartbreak and snot and stuff but hey, it’s a country record.” Jannie ‘Hannepoort’ van Tonder and Willem Moller, both fellow Voëlvry survivors and ex-GBB appeared on the album.

In 2003 he collaborated with ex-Kerels drummer Neil Fishwick (with whom he grew up and attended the same primary and high schools in Germiston) on the critically-acclaimed Blomkrag project and released the album “Boerecountry”. Neil lives on the Crocodile River just outside Schagen, in Mpumalanga where he chiselled out the lyrics for the album. Willem Moller, a guitar-slinger of note who has appeared with numerous acts including; Rodriguez, Big Sky and Nataniel, to name a few joined them and recorded the album. Gary played bass in Die Gereformeerde Blues Band with Willem and they appeared on Koos Kombuis’ “Niemandsland” together.

Gary worked for twelve years at Hillbrow Record Centre after which he was employed for two years at a compact disc wholesaler. Herselman also founded South Africa’s first truly independent music distributor, Tic Tic Bang, in the 1990s. Tic Tic Bang was very successful in representing South African artists such as Henry Ate/Karma, Koos Kombuis, Johannes Kerkorrel, James Phillips, Mzwhake Mbuli and Jennifer Ferguson amongst others.

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The Kerels

Chrome Sweet Chrome

Chrome Sweet Chrome cover art
  • Download Album

    Immediate download of 13-track album in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.
1. Skin On Skin 04:48
2. Only In The Movies 05:17
3. Twist & Turn 03:47
4. Murder She Wrote 03:38
5. Limbo 03:43
6. Take Me To Your Leader 06:01
7. Which Came First 03:52
8. Pampoensop 03:41
9. Heavy Heart 05:32
10. Credit Control 03:38
11. Itchy Bite 03:05
12. Big Wheel 04:09
13. Raingauges (free) 00:06

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Buckfever Underground

VERKEERDEVLEI

by BUCKFEVERUNDERGROUND

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Geluk 03:45
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KLAWER 03:38
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BAT DOGS 02:34
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TREINREIS 11:14
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released 01 August 2012

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Buckfever Underground

VERKEERDEVLEI

by BUCKFEVERUNDERGROUND

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Geluk 03:45
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KLAWER 03:38
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BAT DOGS 02:34
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TREINREIS 11:14
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released 01 August 2012

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mud ensemble

1993-1999

by mud ensemble

The Hermit 00:00 / 06:53
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Snorkel 04:10
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Tiger 03:57
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The Bat 05:46
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Can Temba 04:04
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about

THE LEGENDARY MUD ENSEMBLE AT LAST BRINGS OUT THAT LONG AWAITED CD.

The album is a compilation of selected songs between 1993 and 1999.

Anyone that went to their concerts in the 90s know that every concert was a viceral experience for itself. Every live show was an event.

Theire filmic sensibility on stage ,and use of performance art, ritual, voodoo and alchemy made them one of the most important art /music movements of its kind in the 90s in south africa.
Even though apartheid had finally come to an end ,we where all still full of the scars of that time.There wasnt a person in Yeoville ,Kensington,Hillbrow or Troyville or Soweto that hadnt seen it all .

Their legendary concerts at Bobs bar or The Fig gallery are still to this day ingrained on our consciousness.

Never will the rest of the world know or understand how we lived, even though they arrogantly claim too. Today a few of us still remain to tell the tail of Johburg, no Hollywood production will ever be able to catch it on film. The Mud Ensemble helped us reflect our heritage face our own downfalls and also see the beauty inherent in the grimey streets of Jozi.

MUD PERSONNEL

Juliana Venter
Marcel Van Heerden
Kenny Marschall
Libbie Du Toit
Manya Gittel
Nic Hauser
Thomas Barry
Graeme Feltham

HELPERS

Konrad Welz
Alex Mavro
Christo Boshoff
Kevin Montanari

credits

released 01 April 2011
Mastering by Joseph Suchy (Berlin)
Released by Amatafula Tonträger
Cover design by Gerald Weitenhagen/
http://www.sleevegum.com

All rights reserved.

Amatafula 001
LC4908

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KOOS – The Black Tape

band name

 KOOS

Sing Jy Van Bomme   00:00/02:07
The Black Tape_KOOS Cover ArtThree big things happened to me in 1987: I returned to South Africa after a year of touring my Kalahari Surfers band in the UK, I met my wife and I saw a band called Koos. They were, for me, the only South African band that fitted in with the work I was doing with Recommended Records and the political climate of the time. I saw them play at “The Pool CLub” and later again at “The Black Sun” in Johannesburg.They performed with incredible intensity combining theatre, art and music with punk sensibility, and best of all using the Afrikaans language which the best expressed , in my opinion, the peculiar zeitgeist of the 80’s. Not only the South African 80’s but the global cold war 80’s. Like German, Afrikaans has an angst that grabs the soul. I approached them about recording and brought them into the Shifty Studio* one Sunday morning where most of their tracks were laid down live. Shifty had already begun recording some of the Afrikaans punk bands like Gereformeerde Blues Band and Bernoldus Niemand. KOOS were different though:they fitted somewhere outside of the light entertainment market. It was hard. I think of the Brecht quote “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” Essentially a live studio album, it was recorded straight onto a Fostex B16 and digital SonyPCM ( the first digital recorder on the market). The recording was released as a cassette tape in a brown paper bag stamped with the word “KOOS”. Some months later, I recorded one of their performances live at the Black Sun, from which 2 bonus tracks appear here Here, then ,is the KOOS cassette packaged for CD reissue and now for MP3 release through Sjambok. As they say “Oud maar nog nie koud” Warrick Sony – Kalahari Surfers http://www.kalaharisurfers.co.za Lloyd Ross and I ran a small mobile studio called “Shifty” which was situated in a derelict mining village South West of the city of Johannesburg. Check out the Shifty Records website: http://www.shifty.co.za I will be uploading their releases here shortly.
credits
released 06 June 1986
tags
tags: afrikaans alternative art electronic industrial johannesburg punk rock south africa Cape Town
license
Some rights reserved. Please refer to individual track pages for license info.
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VOELVRY – Various Artisits (original 1986 album)

Voelvry Cover Art
album name

Voelvry

band name

by various artists

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about
This is the legit download of the original vinyl album from Shifty Records.
credits
released 12 January 1986
SHIB29
all songs produced and engineered by Lloyd Ross except
Jong Dames Dinamiek , Cowboy & Sing Jy Van Bomme by Warrick Sony
Voelvry was produced and engineered by Lloyd and Warrick

photos by Paul Weinberg