Free music Friday: The Dollfins!

For all of you fans of Cape Town's most wild, unhinged marine mammals, this one will surely have been on heavy rotation already. But in case you've somehow missed out on it, here's my overdue share of one of my favourite recordings to come out of South Africa this year!

 

The self titled debut album from the Dollfins is pretty much perfect in my eyes. Not perfect because it polishes out any imperfections, but perfect because it embraces them. All too often, South African bands who are fantastic live, land up releasing lifeless and flat sounding recordings. Generally this is becasue said awesome band have spent a whole bunch of money on creating what they hope will be a slick, professional product, but it's ultimately it's totally over-produced, over-polished and sucked dry of any soul in the process. Thankfully there are some who avoid this hyper-polished-crap-trap; with some of the finest examples being Make Overs, Us Kids Know & now The Dollfins.

Recorded in the apartment of 2 of the 3 band members & produced by their friend Andy Islands (who plays synth with said members in the also excellent Beach Party), "The Dollfins" LP is, as I said, perfect (well perfect to me anyway. Maybe you'd have liked some more sax or a bit of accordion here and there). Other than being perfect, it also happens to be free which means you can...

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

"THE DOLLFINS"

NOW!

All pics by Kent Andreasen - check out the whole set of neatness here!

Gateway Drugs - Airwaves

A couple weeks back I included a neat little synth pop song as a part of the Home Movie Factory promo video soundtrack. Today I'm happy to share the official video for this song with you!

Airwaves is a shockingly good first single for a brand new band like Gateway Drugs. The music video only helps to make this something even more awesome. Directed by Xander van der Westhuizen (who just happens to play drums with the Gateway Drugs in their other band, Beach Party) the video is a lovely journey through space, stars and synths. Enjoy!

You are invited: Need for Swede 2!

South Africa's only home-made movie event is back!

RSVP here!

After a highly successful debut night in August, Need For Swede returns to The Bioscope on Thursday the 27th of September. The event will be the second installment in a trilogy of nights designed to celebrate hand-crafted movie remakes in the spirit of Michel Gondry's “Be Kind Rewind” and we want you to get involved!

Create your own DIY remake! Use what you have, get your friends involved, craft your own piece of sweded magic and see it on the big screen

of Johannesburg's only independent cinema! It's fun! It's easy! It doesn't even need to be good!

For the second Need For Swede we will be screening all 4 of the first South African swedes, created for last month's event:

THE GOONIES
by Tess, Henco & Mark

CASTAWAY
by PJ Kotze and his magical Open Window students

SIGNS
by Lovechild

DISTRICT 9
by Cool your Jets

PLUS all new swedes created for NFS2!

PLUS PLUS PLUS bonus swedes from our American friends at Swede Fest!

(side note, all Need For Swede films will be sent over to Swede Fest to be screened at their events across the US. WOW!)

To get involved mail benrausch at gmail dot com

PRIZES!!!

Joburg super-blog, Another-Day, will be running a contest to find the most popular Need for Swede entry! After the third episode of NFS, all swedes will be posted to the blog where people can vote for their favourites!

Greenside's Odd Cafe is sponsoring a full dinner in their basement exhibition space for the winners!

Runners up will win prizes from a dream team of local DIY brands, including:

Vouchers from vintage fashion super-store Asseblief!

Exclusive NFS edition of vinyl stickers from decor wunderkids Mikado!

T-shirts from design monsters Doktrine!

Music & merch from local record labels KRNGY & SMACM!

Plus movie tickets from our home, The Bioscope!

We do this all the time: Need for Swede 01!

REBEL ALLIANCE 8

Need for Swede 01

The Bioscope Independent Cinema

11 Aug 2012

document by Olivia Mortimer

You are invited: SUPER-MEGA-DELUXE EDITION!

Whew! I'm getting all giddy just starting to write this post! Okay, here we go...

If any of you don't know, Joburg is really picking up! The amount of exciting stuff going down over the last while has been insane. This coming weekend confirms this and actually suggests the ammount of awesome events we'll seeing is only going up! Today I'm very happy to invite you to an awesome party for every day from Thursday to Sunday, PLUS a fantastic exhibition gracing the city for the next 10 days! I'm gonna have try keep this brief, but hot damn - IT'S ALL SO EXCITING!

First, Free Particle is the latest piece of brilliance delivered to the people of South Africa as a part of The France/ South Africa Season's 2012-2013 (I recently posted on the Home Movie Factory that was brought to Johannesburg as a part of The Season). The amount of cool stuff planned for Free Particle is really quite ridiculous, so let me just tell you to visit their page, RSVP to the facebook event and check out the flyer (which I was lucky enough to be asked to illustrate) for this cutting edge wonder!

Now, onto the parties!

THURSDAY:

Two of my favourite live acts invade my favourite dance club! The fantastic Yo Grapes and SMACM's own Vampire9000 will be hitting Kitchener's and I am one excited Ben! The lineup also include Matthew Mole, who I have yet to see, but have heard great things about!

RSVP here!

FRIDAY:

My own band, Eyes Like Mirrors, haven't played live in months. The good news: we're coming out of hibernation with truckload of new songs and they're pretty damn neat if I say so myself. The best news: our return happens to be in support of the return of albinobeach! I have ranted at length on this blog about my love for this band, and complained for ages to friends about how bummed out I was when they stopped playing shows almost three years back! But come Friday I won't have much to be bummed about as albinobeach will once again crack open the heavens and bring their colossal soundscapes to my ears!

What's more, the poster for this event just might be my favorite one for any event I've played with any band ever. The work of albinobeach's own Ian Finch, prepare to give your eyes a monster hug with this sucker!

RSVP here!

SATURDAY:

I'll be back in Kitcheners and you better be right there with me! Disco De Moda continues it's own tradition of serving up a refreshing dose of quality dance music in the face of the endless sea of sooooo much lameness. This month the of-so-soulful D.D.M. presents an event called "You say indie, we say disco"! The lineup features Casioheart, Data Takashi, Corvair & Rakkie, not only 4 of my favourite DJs, but also 4 of my favoruite people in our city of johannesburg! On top of that, the night will be headlined by one of my favourite people from another city; Cape Town's deadly Tommy Gun! This one really is gonna kill me!

RSVP here!

SUNDAY:

If I manage to make it off the Disco De Moda dancefloor alive, I'll be very happy to be out in the sunshine enjoying Sunday Jive! Expect rooftop bliss, soundtracked by another 4 of my favourites, Charles Leonard, Andrew the DJ, Plaat Japie and Rosie Parade! As if this weren't enough the event will feature a live set by the João Orecchia/ BLK JKS stellar lovechild, Motèl Mari!

 

RSVP here!

There it is. What an awesome time to be living in this city!

You are invited to Sass at Untamed Youth!

Tomorrow night I'll be making my return to one of my favourite nights; the original Cape Town edition of Untamed Youth. My previous adventures at UT CT, playing head to head with Tommy Gun, made for one of my most enjoyable sets of the past year. Pretty sure tomorrow night should be just as great!

RSVP here!