My engagement with Spoek Mathambo’s new album, Father Creeper, released under Sub Pop earlier this year, has been odd, disjointed and coincidental. This is utterly perfect because to me, that is what the album is. It’s an ode to schizophrenic, globalised, fragmented, hybrid-art and I love it.
To be honest, the first time I heard a track from it, ‘Let Them Talk’, I was like, ‘What the hell is this?’ Far be it from 5FM to play a good song (my CD player is bust) so this was astounding in itself. It sounded a little bit like early Kings Of Leon but way more interesting with the African injection of Spoek rapping and female spoken word-style lyrics. I had no idea what it was but I knew I liked it. I then went and did a little research and recalled the infamous rendition of Joy Division’s ‘Control’ music video that set the blogging world alight in 2011. I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t give this artist nearly as much of my time as I should have and I intend to start making up for it hard and fast.
Last night, Spoek Mathambo came to Durban as part of his South African tour to promote Father Creeper. Live, the newest, hottest music venue in Durban hosted the evening and had acquired Bear Girls, Veranda Panda, Night Vision and Asleep In Transit to support Spoek on the bill. Bear Girls were doing their usual uninspiring drum and bass set. Veranda Panda is okay. I always moderately enjoy their Balkan-flavoured electronica, jumpy, dub-gypsy-dance bla bla bla. Jane Baillie is super cute and certainly impressive with her violin skills. They seem to just lack something for me and it’s certainly not energy. I understand musicians who create music like that but to say that there is nothing like it, is a lie and my assumption is that the duo are trying to break new ground with their hash of styles, genres and ideas but I don’t believe they are succeeding in that respect.
Seeing as we’re being honest here, I’ll just say it, ‘What the ef were Asleep In Transit doing on the bill? Not to be a stickler for linear thematics when it comes to a gig but come on. I was watching them in all their boring indie-pop glory and felt sincerely sorry for them. To ask Asleep In Transit to open for Spoek Mathambo is setting them up for scorn in terms of what the crowd there are expecting at one of his shows. Aside from the obvious sore thumb that they are as a genre at an event where everyone else on the line up is essentially based in electronica, Asleep In Transit are just not in the same league as Spoek Mathambo in terms of quality. ‘Asleep In Pieces’ and ‘Fall Asleep And Walk Away’ were a couple of nick names being thrown around as people drifted about the dance floor and I kid you not.
When Spoek Mathambo and his band came on stage, it became apparent that another world was being created for us the audience. He has what to me, true artists have. That which sets them a part from the mediocre and the ambitious; he is in himself, his own masterpiece. Spoek creates a soundscape that incorporates all the visual, sonic and conceptual aspects you need to become submerged in his futuristic, sexed-up, township tech, globalised African villiage. He sounds like nothing else because he includes so much, maybe everything and it’s so believable when he performs. Did that sentence make sense? I don’t think so. It shouldn’t because describing a deconstructed shanty house that has been rebuilt into a skyscraper should not make sense. That’s the image one can erect from Spoek Mathambo; he is pure fantasy a la Bladerunner in Sowetho.
Live’s dance-floor literally turned into a wave of apocalyptic hysteria as Durban’s culturally starved youth shook and spazzed out to ‘Put On Some Red’ and ‘Let Them Talk’. We’re young enough to not have been directly effected by the blows of Apartheid and now I feel like we are literally dancing in the rubble left over from our evil history. Spoek Mathambo is making magic with this mess through his powerful and potent lyrics about real contemporary issues like unemployment, blood diamonds and life after the death of South African oppression. Consider Spoek a modern day Pied Piper of artistic communication and put him down firmly as one to follow.
[video]
Amazing Lace
Flare Mayo 2012
Sarah Gadon por Chris Nicholls. Edición de moda de Elizabeth Cabral.
…..
Flare May 2012
Sarah Gadon by Chris Nicholls. Fashion edition by Elizabeth Cabral.
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I have a strange obsession with lips. But lips that appear to have fault, or difference. Perhaps mis-shapen. I like lips that have been surgically altered like Emmanuelle Béart.
I like lips that have been split by a punch or a beer bottle.
I like cleft pallets. The tiny surgical scar that joins the top lip to the crease of the nose.
Or even if the cleft has been left untouched, cattish and raw looking.
I like lips that have been torn. I bite my lips when Im nervous. Im often nervous so they are ragged most of the time.
I like lips that are swollen from kissing.
I like lips that are smudged with lipstick.
I like lips that have moles or freckles on them. Lips that have bled into a birthmark perhaps.
I like when the top lip overlaps the bottom lip.
I like the cord of skin that attaches your lip to your gum.
I like when lips are chapped with cold.
I like when the corners of your lips rip a little, as if you have tried to engulf a gobstopper in your mouth.
I like pursed lips.
Lips.
In today’s media saturated global environment, trying to define why one even likes or dislikes something artistic is almost impossible. Everything they taught us a couple of years ago in the Humanities Faculty about discourse, semiotics and hegemony has distorted so much that the definition can hardly be associated with the term anymore. The same can be said of ‘art’ and ‘media’ since the lens of sociality changed everything entirely on the ever evolving, beautiful internet.
Art has always been a contested subject but to bring this into some kind of context, to define art would be to attach it to a system of esthetics that are represented by a creative elite who have the means to motivate an art project, discuss it amongst themselves and indicate how it evokes emotion in the viewer.
Media in definition is an extension of communication that is presented to a public audience in a form that can be understood and engaged with. Traditionally, media was collected, produced and distributed by an elite who had publishing rights, legitimacy as an informative authority and access to the public.
The segregation of the ignorant masses and the genteel classes who used to produce and dictate art, has been predominantly removed by the all accessible internet which acts both as a platform and source of art. The world powers who impose a Communist system on their people such as China have sought to limit the internet which the public may access. On one hand, in the traditional sense this could be perceived as a conservational effort to retain the traditional characteristics of art and media; a means to avoiding the genre-less, fuzzy in-distinction that can be attributed to globalisation.
However, art that remains stagnant, that is not translated to a relevant world, that does not deteriorate, is not reborn and does not evolve nor brings accurate representation of the contemporary world cannot truly be considered art. This is supported by the fact that, that which becomes irrelevant, ceases to evoke fresh emotion. The art becomes ‘bad’. It no longer works. So what does it become? If the answer is ‘nothing’ then this is art that was never born, never art and then can be argued whether it existed in context at all. At worst, the subject will become ‘irreferable’. Yes, I just made that word up.
At the core, art and social media are at odds with each other, due to their nature of understanding in the world. Social media is lo-fi, accessible, interactive, for everyone and all the time. Art as an elite idea does not find a place in social media where it can breathe easy. Yet this is cause for it to change. Creative representation of various levels that are great, good and bad will always exists; perhaps art that is bad will be the art that can no longer bare to exist or look at itself in a social space such as Facebook.
The next idea to consider is that of criticism and art and their relationship in social media. Real opinion and criticism is very neatly avoided on social media simply by making the option for a negative widget unavailable. How many of us have gone through pages and wished there was a ‘dislike’ button (Turk, Maurice:2012)? Perhaps, we used to wish there was such a means to expression but since the social system to either like, share or retweet became second nature to how we show a reaction to a medium, the opportunity to disagree or dislike something has diminished. We perceive media on social networks through a mindset of ‘if I like it or support it, I will let them know by clicking ‘like’. If we don’t like something, we don’t take time to acknowledge why we don’t and to make that opinion known. Instead we ignore it and move onto the next thing, hoping we can like it. This behaviour can be put down in some way to how ORM (online reputation management) is important to us because how people perceive our avatars is in essence, how they perceive us in reality. Claiming to like all the right things and to be knowledgable on them is far more Klout-worthy then writing scathing comments or simply saying something online is crap, despite what the adverts say.
So what is art? Does it have to have a place in social media to be considered relevant? Real art is that which can adapt and rise above communication and technology. The ability of art that makes it so powerful is that it transcends meagre obstacles and apparent contradictions. The message remains, it changes, it is transient, it dies and it is reborn.
Splashy Fen 2012
Eliza Day @FashyFen for Muse Magazine
Splashy Fen was the first music festival I ever went to. I was
fourteen and there were still teepees full of magic mushrooms and
Hobbits around the edge of the little hamlet.
Now when I returned at twenty-three, the festival has matured and
grown into what was always the most beautiful festival in South Africa
but now is certainly one of the best.
Not only does Pedro Carlo have a legacy of sensational festival
ownership and organisation to acknowledge but Durbanites have a
thrilling atmosphere when they collaborate together. The spirit at
Splashy Fen is debauched and beautiful as a Harmony Korine production.
There are characters here, both new and old who bring with them
sparkly subdued realities that clash and thrive on a hay-strewn dance
floor.
To my memory, I would like to note E.X.P.L.O.S.I.O.N. who hail from
Toti. It is 1pm and we’ve been here a while (days?). Most of us are
wearing our strangest remnants of whatever we have left in our duffel
bags. Fish, our dear friend, is gibbering and manic while we sway in
awe. The guitarist is a young and possibly more beautiful, Page
inspired, string genius. They remind me a lot of Danzig and during the
festival, I believe the frontman let a fire cracker explode on the
dance floor in the electro tent. Living up to their name nicely.
For my crew and I, we eagerly awaited the Sunday line-up which truly
stood out as the Sabbath Day of Rock ‘n Roll. Having arrived on
Thursday evening, the journey to Sunday was no easy feat. We
floundered in a Fen sodden with rum, sweat and bubble-mix. We cindered
under a consistently golden fireball sun and fought madness against
the never-waning full moon. Sunday came as a dreaded revelation that
this might be the last day we spend alive at Splashy Fen or any other
place.
At some point (and no one can be sure when) the following language
interrupted all natural cognitive thought at our camp. This new
language carried on for the duration of the festival, peaking and
tweaking as everyone became more wasted and therefore; weird:
“Welcome to the Intertent. Homepage of the WordWideWetWipe where the
socially savvy (retarded) like to TRAN together on Twatter. If you
download the latest Fashplayer you should make sure to follow Paris
Hilton’s twats @Matt fashtagSnappedVienna.com”
Anyway, before that evil lingo takes hold again, back to the bands. I
have to give huge kudos to Black Math, whom played Sunday. This
three-piece don’t play, they wail out so super hard, it’s ridiculous.
Proggy, spacey jams that I felt had elements of The Mars Volta and The
Veils at times was concluded with a mind blowing rendition of ‘Jack
The Ripper’.
Biased as I almost certainly am, I am sure that most of the festival
will agree that The Great Apes broke everyone’s brains and their will
to quit partying on the last night of the festival. Yusif, dude, your
vocal range and strength stood up to the mark after a tour that I’m
sure put you and the rest of the Apes through some other kind of
self-induced hell. Good luck for the launch tonight!
Representing Gauteng was Shadowclub. This band is an extremely
creative and cool mix of pop and indie rock. They work the radio, they
work a crowd and I’ve seen that front man school little girls of fish
round and round every venue I’ve been in their audience.
So those were my highlights and my twilights (because there is no
doubt that shit got weird). Well done to everyone who was a part of
this event and thank you very much. Now, I’m just going to continue to
lie down in my dark room of recovery.
Bitchez B Cray...My latest column in Muse
andallshefound asked: Tell me you have that amazing "I'm home from Splashy and now I'm clean" feeling!! Gotta love it, hope you had an amazing one!
Post-party influenza but otherwise it’s gooooood to be home. Hope yours was rad lady :)