Cape music picks: September 30 2011

Local hip-hop battles for attention alongside UK underground rockers Ulterior and megastars Coldplay.

■ The inaugural Best of Ekapa Hip-Hop Festival has the antidote to over-commercial clubbing. The who’s who of the Western Cape’s “disenfranchised” hip-hop community come together to perform at the inaugural 24-hour Best of Ekapa Hip-Hop Festival this weekend.

If the likes of Isaac Mutant, Archie “DAT” Sopazi, Dokte Kapnoudis, Andy Leigh, Hemel Besem, Korianda, Earl the Reaper, Raptile, Bonzaya the Street Tyrant, Chronic Clan, League of Shadows and the Unseen Ones aren’t on your iTunes playlist, it’s only because the mainstream media has been smoke screened by the salacious sales pitches of Die Antwoord and Jack Parow. The festival is an extension of the weekly underground hip-hop showcase at the Purple Turtle, aimed at giving those sidelined Mother City artists a platform to come together and share skills.

Kontiki Farm, corner of Old Mamre Avenue and Blombosch Street, Atlantis, October 1, noon. Entrance is R50 (pre-sold) or R70 (gate), plus R10 for vehicles. Kids under 12 free. Website: www.notyetuhuru.co.za.

■ “Limestone rock” is how Coldplay’s lead singer Chris Martin, tongue in cheek, described the sound of their 2000 debut album, Parachutes, distinguishing the band from the conveyor belt of retro rockers clogging up the British charts.

For the past decade, Coldplay’s mix of romantic, meditative and often downright morose chamber rock ballads and post-Brit-pop guitar sighs have struck a chord, earning the band six Brit awards and seven Grammys. Critics haven’t always tuned in, with the “dean of rock critics”, Robert Christgau, summing up their pulling power as: “Precise, bland and banal — they’re the definition of a pleasant bore—easy to tune out, impossible to care for.” Indeed. Here’s hoping they will preview songs off their forthcoming opus, Mylo Xyloto. South Africa’s own modern rock romantics, the Parlotones, will soar through the stadium in support.

Cape Town Stadium, Green Point, October 5, 6pm. Entrance is R270 to R635. Book at Computicket.

■ British electro-rock rebels Ulterior believe that sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll still have currency. Their debut album, Wild in Wildlife, is fuelled by tales of mortality, the apocalypse and all sorts of inner-city sub-cultural (s)excesses. Their nihilistic guitar rock and drum-sequenced sonic attack, with homegrown alt rockers the Wild Eyes and the Frown, is being billed as the beginning of “imaginal”—“an idea infused with the spirit of collaboration, cele­bration, creation and transformation”. Expect something special.

The Assembly, 61 Harrington Street, Cape Town, October 1, 8pm. Entrance is R100. Book at www.webtickets.co.za.