VARIOUS ARTISTS – BREATHE SUNSHINE (VOL 2) (AMABALA RECORDS)
September 16th, 2004 by soyo
Breathe Sunshine is a downtempo compilation featuring artists exclusively from the South African cities of Cape Town and Johannesburg, with the accent on chilled and soulful electronica rather than ethno trance ambience. That said, the very best moments of the compilation are when African instruments and singing are subtly incorporated into the tracks.
Some tunes, like the opener ‘Feeling The Sun’, a Morcheeba-esque downtempo song, sound like they could have been made somewhere in Europe. Other tracks wear their African souls a little closer to the surface. Egyptian Nursery’s ‘God’s Window’ and Beifus’s ‘Lava’ are good examples of the result of the perfect blending of emotional electronic sounds with local music and native singing.
As with many a so-called “chilled” compilation, the album teeters on the edge of blandness now and again, but stand out tracks like Goldfish’s ‘Dream’ and Ghetto Muffin’s ‘Tsamana’ quickly pull it back from the brink. There is even a little bit of intelligent (so unfashionable, I know) D’n'B in the form of ‘Yoda.com’ by Jorge Carlos, leaving me misty eyed for the 165bpms present at the birth of Jungle music.
Top billing on the compilation must go to the artists responsible for ‘Elungelo’ featuring RSL and the world famous Ladysmith Black Mambazo. As one would expect the trademark LBM powerful vocal performance is given centre stage. Coupled with a lazy fast-slow-fast-slow beat makes for a beautiful closing track.
Life in Cape Town and Johannesburg, the sleeve notes tell us, can be hard places to live. The short testimonies of two young South African’s John (black man) and Canda (white woman) feature on the notes and provide an insight into life in their cities. Both care very much about their country and share an optimism for its future. However, not much is given away about the largely unknown artists that feature on the compilation.
As a bonus, the CD comes with an hour-long DVD of all the tracks with accompanying visuals by VJ collective the Photon Shepherds. This DVD can be played during a party or a back room. But wherever it is played the locally shot footage certainly deserves more than a cursory watch.
Congratulations then to Amabala Records for carefully choosing some lovely tracks and for going that bit extra with its insightful sleeve notes and DVD with entertaining visuals. As our summer ends, and South Africa’s summer begins, I wish them firstly: a better one than ours and secondly, all the best for the future. ‘Breathe Sunshine’ – it’ll probably be the last chance we get this year.
Now then how much is a flight to Cape Town…?
Soyo
Breathe Sunshine is released 11 October 2004 on Amabala Records
