I’ve been playing ‘Moloch’ live recently, so there’s a chance you may know it, here is a scratch track i recorded with Dirk Hugo a while back:

‘Moloch’ by Righard Kapp by darkpigraph

Some pics by Niklas Zimmer, also featuring the stunning Theatre in the District, visuals by Imagemaster Blink and jellyfish by Zara-Moon Arthur, whose images also adorn the album cover.

More here

As a longtime fan of the band, i am proud to announce the release of Benguela’s 4th album, ‘Black Southeaster’, via Jaunted Haunts Press. This is also the band’s first new album since 2004′s SUI, coming after an extended hiatus and the improvisational trio’s return to Cape town’s live circuit in 2009. ‘Black Southeaster’ was recorded in a day at the sadly defunct SUI Studios, and then trimmed down with edits and fleshed out again with overdubs.

Black Southeaster launches on Fri the 23rd of July at the Theatre in the District, District 6, after which Benguela embark on an SA tour.

Benguela ‘Black Southeaster’ tour dates:

Fri 23 July:  Album launch at Theater in the District,  District6  (feat Imagemaster Blink & Righard Kapp)

Thurs 29 July:  Tings&Times, Pretoria (feat.Joao Orecchia)

Fri 30 July: The Bioscope,  JHB (feat Joao Orecchia)

Sat 31 July: George Hotel, Eshowe, KZN

Sun 1st Aug: NSA Gallery, DBN (afternoon show)

Sun 1st Aug: Highfield House, DBN (evening)

Wed 4th Aug: Chandlers Underground, East London

Thurs 5 Aug: Beethoven Room, Rhodes,  Grahamstown

Fri 6 Aug:  The Chaplin @ Uptown Theater, PE

Sat 7 Aug: Potter’s Place, Jeffrey’s Bay

Tues 24 Aug: Die Boer, Durbanville

Thurs 2 sept: Speedway 105, Gardens, Cape Town (feat. Righard Kapp)

Dates and venues may still need to be confirmed but i will update these regularly.

Track Previews:

Black Southeaster sample

Killer Frog Fungus sample

Meridian sample

Neap sample

New digital and physical distribution channels will be finalised as the launch approaches, but the best way to procure a copy will still be to catch one of these rare gigs.

Ahleuchatistas – Of The Body Prone
Tzadik, 2009

I first heard of Ahleuchatistas when Ella Buckley wrote me that she had seen them in New York and that i would flip my lid when i heard them. Having finally heard their 2009 album ‘Of the Body Prone’, i say, fair enough! Ahleuchatistas’ music is, for the most part, like a cat-and-mouse chase between the guitar, bass and drums; with brisk yet disjointed time signatures, the songs move in fits and starts and are punctuated by erratic bursts of noise. There’s something simultaneously wonky and menacing about this music, a bit like a hastily patched up scarecrow that nevertheless looks all the more creepy for it.
The album is characterised by Shane Perlowan’s spidery guitar sound, but the drummer is also a big part of it’s appeal for me:  ‘Total Nightmare in a Deep Dive’ pairs a placid spaghetti western riff with a deep bass rumble and the the kind of free noise drumming that i’ve got a permanent hardon for.

Ahleuchatistas – Owls

Ahleuchatistas – Total Nightmare in a Deep Dive

Sajjanu – Pechiku
Tzadik, 2009

Sajjanu are a three piece from Japan, whose deity seems to have decreed ‘Thou shalt not repeat a riff, and if thou must, thou shalt somehow destroy it”. This incredibly perverse music can be daunting to listen to, as it is certainly as close to musical ADD as you can get. Even scarier is how tightly composed these never-repeating pieces are, i don’t know where they get the mental capacity to remember all that! But amazingly, each of the couple hundred riffs that get fired off at you within the space of a track is a gem.  Sajjanu are also more than willing to indulge in some of the more masturbatory aspects of rock’s speckled history and go EPIC on your ass, but it’s all in the name of  being as schizophrenic as possible. These guys are clearly uber-virtuosos, but an overarching sense of humour is the driving force behind this album. Not recommended if you need a groove to hold onto.

Sajjanu – Mechanical Tampopong

Bonus Rave:

Mi Ami – Steal Your Face
Thrill Jockey, 2010

I just thought i’d tack a mention of this album at the end of this post because if you haven’t heard it you are missing out. There seems to be a collective creaming of selves on review sites and even among my friends about this, and with very good reason: Mi Ami’s ‘Steal Your Face’ is one of the most satisfying, off the wall rock albums i’ve heard in ages – if i’m going to find a comparison, think Gang Gang Dance put into a blender along with Ex Models. The second track, ‘Latin Lover’, sounds suspiciously like   The Rapture’s ‘House of Jealous Lovers’ for a while, with yelped vocals and serrated guitar riding atop a disco beat, but only until the guitar part collapses in on itself and idiot-savant analog synth noise swallows the whole thing whole, while ‘Dreamers’ manages to out-Can Can themselves. Do check it out.

The night before boarding my flight to Hong Kong i had the great privilege to share the bill with some old friends like Us Kids Know, Kidofdoom and Joao Orecchia  at a great show held on a rooftop 19 floors up in the Johannesburg CBD.

As it happens, Joao Orecchia is just about to put his new album, Hands and Feet, out on the Portland, Oregon-based Other Electricities label, which is really gratifying as Joao and i had a few occasions over the last couple of years to compare notes on our respective album’s progress and it’s great to hear it finally done. Joao’s music reminds me a lot of  The Notwist, Four Tet and Mùm, with an elegaic minor-key character playfully subverted with minutely detailed digital trickery. Ask anyone who’s seen him, watching him pull these songs off live is quite an experience.

Joao Orecchia – Midnight Serenade

Joao Orecchia on FB

I also got to do an album swap with Givan Lötz, whose music blew me away with its understated gorgeousness. This album, Easy Now, is ridiculously limited edition (i’m talking 20 copies) but hopefully there’s much more to come from him. His music reminds me a lot of Six Organs of Admittance at times, and Elliot Smith at others,  with the occasional mindbending drone interlude . On the whole, however, what i love about his music is that it’s unconcerned with trying too hard to impress, winning you over with its sedate and monumental grace instead. Check the song ‘Soon’ out, in my opinion the highlight of the album and a worthy namesake of My Bloody Valentine’s swoonfest. 

Givan Lötz – Soon

Givan Lötz on FB

As my cursed luck would have it, i’m away for the entire time they’re here, but you can catch them at any one of the following gigs:

Fri 25 Sept @ EVOL
Wed 30 Sept @ Assembly (with Eat This, Horse)
Fri 2 Oct @ EVOL
Sat 3 Oct @ Corner Bar (Durbanville)

I should also mention that the Sticky Antlers’ KRNGY logo have offered a fine new album from Mfeka Mahlangu’s ‘Immaculate Afterbirth’ project entitled ‘Fruhjahrslorchel’ for download – the first few tracks of which consist of haunting drones peppered with ominous percussion, before the beautifully atmospheric 18 minute title track provides some solace. Check the album out here:

Immaculate Afterbirth – “Fruhjahrslorchel”

Blackmilk is a band that consisted of Ramon Galvan on vocals, synth and toys, Ian Watson (Lithium,  Enkeleen, Throatball) on guitar, Paul Opie (Lithium, Moranga, Action Blueprint) on bass and Damian Staz on drums. They released one full length album, The Summer Eye (which you can still get! HERE!).

Kimono Dragon was a single that was self-released after the band had split up. The video is by Jacqui Stecher and Jesse Breytenbach.

In any case: since I last posted on this site, I have been working hard towards gearing myself for doing screenprints more regularly, and will be starting a separate blog around that fairly soon. I was also asked to write a review of The Wild Eyes’ gig two weeks ago, for Mahala.co.za, which you can read here.

I also did some rough demos of some new acoustic pieces, one of which you can hear here.

Ramon Galvan has also started his own blogspot, on which he posts lyrics from the ‘Outer Tumbolia’ and other interesting pieces about his processes. Be sure to check that out here.

Skrummasjien: (l) Mark – Drummasjien, (r) Righard – Strummasjien

Skrummasjien was a two-piece noise rock outfit consisting of myself on guitar and Mark Van Niekerk on drums. The central idea was to fixate on an almost comical heaviosity based on power chord riffs, thrash metal drumming and feedback, coupled with noise loops.We liked the idea of jumping from one idea to another in a hyperactive way, so the tracks were often 10 minute sections that consisted of 5 or 6 ideas in quick succession. We gigged VERY occasionally, opening for Throatball (Ian Watson’s awesome thrash metal band) on one occasion and Action Blueprint (Paul Opie’s project after Blackmilk), and then another one in the back room at EVOL, which we played in the middle of the room with no PA.

We recorded our jams pretty diligently, though often on very rudimentary equipment, and there is hours of this stuff – not all listenable. During a recent visit to Mark he drew my attention to this section that was better than i remember.

Skrummasjien – Mmmurks

Another ‘track’ that i personally love, even though the clipping on it is positively caustic, is one we’ve titled ‘Kepler (Vessels of God)’

Skrummasjien – Kepler (Vessels of God)

We also compiled a cd-r of live and practice recordings that was kind of the inaugural release on One Minute Trolley Dash (which i still have plenty of copies of by the way)

In the time of shitgaze getting serious cred, this stuff doesnt sound THAT preposterous – but be warned, it is lo-fi city we’re talking here!

Andre van Rensburg – Unfinished Cities

(South of the Border, 2008)

“When he was 6 years old, André van Rensburg strung a guitar string to a plank of wood, attached the other end to his bedroom window bars and yanked the string until it broke. His musical vision has changed little since…”. He has, however, cast a huge shadow in the history of South African leftfield music: his previous projects include the legendary rock trio Supernature (friends of mine from a gig-going generation before me go glassy-eyed when their name is brought up), Ohm (with Brendan Jury), a stint in Battery 9, and the alt-country project Die Menere (with Battery 9 mastermind and One F label boss Paul Riekert). Van Rensburg has since relocated to Taiwan, where he has been pursuing his interest in Eastern melodicism, Derek Bailey’s brittle tone as well as John Zorn’s compositional strategies.

‘Unfinished Cities’ is the second album to contain van Rensburg’s solo compositions, but it features contributions from, among others, violinist Brendan Jury and japanese Koto player Chieko Mori, who mainly provide thin, dissonant backdrops to van Rensburg’s plucky acoustic performances. The opening track ‘Unfinished Cities pt1″ is probably the most seductively melodic piece here, a beautifully winsome composition that nevertheless sets textural tone for the more challenging material that follows.

‘Unfinished Cities’ can be purchased from CDBaby here, and is available in South Africa from One F Music (drop Clair a mail via ‘General Enquiries’).

Andre van Rensburg’s official website is here.

Nels Cline – Coward

(Cryptogramophone, 2009)

Nels Cline is unfortunately best known for being the guitarist of Wilco: a band i’ve just always found too bland to bother with. Yet Cline has a slew of other, less commercially successful projects, in which he explores many other facets of the guitar; such as The Nels Cline Singers.I also remember hearing a track of him playing with saxophonist Paul Flaherty and (my favourite) drummer Chris Corsano, which was just about the most evil, unhinged wall of noise i’ve heard. From what i know, ‘Coward’ is his first solo album, which is quite odd given the length of his career so far but also understandable in the light of his propensity for collaboration.

One of the first things that strike you about ‘Coward’ is the sheer variety of approaches represented on the album: whether this is a good or bad thing depends on whether you are assessing it as a coherent listening experience or whether, like me, you take the breadth of scope to be an almost didactic indication of syntactic possibilities.

Another thing that hits you early on is the fact that Cline has his chops, in the traditional sense. Cline could, if he wanted to, be one of those guys in guitar shops showing off ridiculously complicated licks designed to intimidate prospective young guitarists. The fact that a cluster of later tracks are titled ‘Onan Suite’ might be a wry allusion to this. The lovely acoustic track ‘Prayer Wheel’ centres around a looped motif but plays around it with some impressive, and very effective note runs. The very next track, ‘Thurston County’, however, after cycling through some spidery dissonant arpeggios and glutinous pitch-bent notes, settles into an unabashedly dumbed down two-chord chug that is incredibly ebullient and just so damn good. This is territory that most virtuoso guitarists won’t venture into, but thankfully Cline does. Throughout the rest of the album Cline puts his virtuosity at the service of his compositions, especially on the monumental acoustic piece ‘Rod Poole’s Gradual Ascent to Heaven’, on which sparse motifs evolve slowly into a dissonant frenzy.

Later on in the album, more electronic sound sources and electric guitars come the fore: ‘Onan Suite: Seedcaster’, with it’s lo-fi electronic farts and squawks, sounded so out of character that i thought i’d started listening to a Black Dice album – that alone should be ample testament to how good it is.’Onan Suite: The Liberator’ is another jaunty riff-fest over a straightforward 4/4 drum machine pattern, after which droning closer ‘Cymbidium’ bookends this remarkable album beautifully.

This album is mandatory listening for anyone with an interest in the guitar and its place in future of music.

Read Nels Cline’s notes on ‘Coward’ here.