Article / 28 January 2011 Cape music picks: January 28 2011 By Miles Keylock Facebook X Email LinkedIn WhatsApp Thandiswa Mazwai and Robin Auld share the spotlight this week. ‘I don’t write the music,” says Thandiswa Mazwai. ‘I receive the music and sing it how it wants to be sung. The music comes from the universe, from that collective consciousness [and] memory, the conversations that we all have with the past, and the future and the present. In my mind those voices speak Xhosa. As an instrument to the music, I have to keep the music’s integrity.” Since going solo, the former Bongo Maffin diva has delved deep into traditional Xhosa melodies and rhythms to map out a fiercely individual path from past to present and future. Her award-winning albums Zabalaza (2005) and Ibokwe (2009) showcase a bewitchingly soulful blend of Afrobeaten folk, jazz, maskandi, reggae, gospel and ghetto funked kwaito-house influences which come together in an invitation for anyone, everyone to listen, laugh, cry and dance along to. Artscape Theatre, January 29, 9pm. Entrance is R95. It’s tough sustaining a career as an original singer songwriter in South Africa. Take Robin Auld. Here’s a guy who’s been developing his craft for almost 30 years. Sure he started out as a breezy pop rock balladeer with mid-80s hit singles such as Baby You’ve Been Good to Me and All Of Woman. But over the years he’s become a versatile roots acoustic rock stylist, performing his easygoing cocktail of country rock jaunts, soulful bluegrass ballads and Afro-Celtic blues at Womad, the SA National Arts Festival and in New York, London and Nashville. So how come – outside of Radio 2000 – we never hear songs off his critically-acclaimed albums such as Diamond of A Day and Jungle Of One on the radio? Is it maybe that his existential roots folk pop parables about love, life and having a laugh while growing old are just too literate compared to the easily digestible ‘pop’ of a James Blunt? Currently based in the UK, Auld jets back into the Mother City to premiere slide guitar and blues harmonica-soaked songs off his brand new album In the Bay Again accompanied by regular collaborator Barry van Zyl (drums). Backsberg, January 30, 3pm. Entrance is R85 (pre-booked) or R100 (gate). Book at Computicket. Tags: Miles Keylock