There are moments when you just utterly rejoice that labels, such as the commendable crate-diggers at Honest Jon's, still bring incredible music you have never heard to your ears. Such was a moment when the 'Shangaan Electro' compilation landed last year, put together by Honest Jon's Records' Mark Ainley and former Basic Channel member and Hardwax owner Mark Ernestus.
The compilation focused on the output of Nozinja AKA Dog, a producer and former mobile phone repairman, who in 2005 revolutionized the traditional South African music popular between Johannesburg, Limpopo and Mozambique.
In place of the 1990s Shangaan disco at 110BPM (have a listen to Shangaan Disco King Penny Penny on Brian Shimkovitz's excellent blog here), Nozinja replaced bass and guitar for marimba and organ sounds of electronic keyboards and cranked the BPM up to speeds of 184.
Adding partially English vocals, and creating groups such as the boiler-suit clad, mask-wearing Tshetsha Boys, Nozinja is not shy about intentions to make music to make people dance and to take it around the world. Whilst the male and female vocals grab your guts with their pure, emotional power, the bent bleeps, super-speed marimbas and fluttering drumbeats get your hips moving at speeds you didn't even know they could move to.
Since becoming a huge Youtube hit where the incredible dance-offs can be witnessed and appearing on more adventurous mixes, such as Pearson Sound/Ramadanman's Fabriclive mix, Nozinja, Tshetsha Boys, Tiyiselani & Nkata Mawewe are currently undertaking their first ever European tour.
A chance to experience this in Berlin comes via the CTM - club transmediale festival, where the dark techno dungeon of Berghain will for one evening, be filled with the infectious ebuillience of the Shangaan Electro sound. Support comes from Berlin-based Afro-specialist DJ Zhao and Berghain resident DJ Pete, who will explore the outer edges of dance music - juke, footwork, kuduro, kwaito and more.
In further celebration of bringing unknown sound cultures into our own electronic musics, Honest Jon's are soon releasing more Shangaan Electro material as well as a hotly anticipated remix series which sees producers such as Mark Ernestus, Anthony 'Shake' Shakir, Actress, Ricardo Villalobos, Oni Ayhun, Peverelist, Burnt Friedman and Zomby reworking the originals. Watch this space!
With a slightly misleading title, this compilation presents the output of the Nozinja studio in Soweto, recorded between 2006 and 2009. The style is called Shangaan electro: South African dance music at breakneck speeds. Original!
