Cape Town has had its day on CD, with compilations such as Cape Town 2am bringing together easy, eclectic electronica from local shores. Now Ready Rolled has put together Cafe Melville: Afrikan Time (without the accent on the e, inexplicably), just so Johannesburg’s arty trendies won’t feel left out.
Jozi suburb Melville is just about the only area one could link to such an endeavour. Move south, towards Soweto, and one would need a touch of kwaito to make it plausible. Move north, towards Sandton, and one would have to include a sprinkling of deep house for the dance snobs. Those in the east probably won’t buy this anyway, since Jeremy Mansfield doesn’t feature on it.
But Melville sits comfortably with its myriad little cocktail bars, restaurants, second-hand book stores, and health and coffee shops — a South African amalgam that’s stylish but not exclusive, comfortable but not common.
And Cafe Melville‘s sound links reasonably well with Melville’s ambient atmosphere. It kicks off a tad slow, with Pocket Change’s somewhat bland Safe Mode, but Lava’s Biefus, the second track, is a more interesting blend of percussion and African vocals.
Third comes the charming KB with a slow but sublime mix of O Alla, and the Mother City reaches out through the Goema Captains on a “electro swing” mix of Goema Goema, with funky trumpets and a stimulating rhythm that finally breathes laid-back life into the album.
Swing Cat’s Mind of a Shark is sexy in a dirty fashion; Busi Mhlongo’s Indiza (Voyages) keeps the beat easy but insistent; and Landscape’s Anti Hero has a semblance of scratching over an eerie melody. So it continues, culminating with Delphi Affair’s Romance (again, a bit bland) and Elac’s Oriental-sounding Otoplasma.
In last week’s edition of Friday, we wrote about Amabala’s Breathe Sunshine series, in which ambient artists blend Western and African influences, including electronica by the likes of Felix Laband (the third Breathe Sunshine album is at present being put together, Amabala says). Cafe Melville ties in well with that concept, though it has less of the African flavour.
Still, both Breathe Sunshine and Cafe Melville are richer-sounding and more rewarding than the glut of slapped-together “chill” albums available these days.
Another new release, for example, Gallo’s Absolute Chill: Groove, includes a sexy mix of a Barry White track (you can’t really go wrong with White, anyway), but mostly serves up predictable, slow vocals-and-percussion combinations from Thievery Corporation, Byron Kuntz, Sono, Leftfield and others: not bad to listen to, yes, but as forgettable as a Pop Stars band.
At least Cafe Melville, like the suburb, stands secure in its unique personality.