The Real Estate Agents, Markus Wormstorm and Sibot, are no strangers to those who dabble in the local electronica and hip-hop scenes — recall the tunes for Max Normal and the Constructus Corporation. With a growing following on the live-music front, the pair have recently released their self-titled debut album through African Dope Records.
For the Agents, a witty, almost linguistic parody of the aural experiences emerges. They draw samples from biology documentaries, familiar television programme themes, dialogue from kids’ programmes and what sounds like Idols auditions. Arrangements invoke old-school arcade games, slower loungy tones and underwater beat-boxing. And, seemingly unifying the sound, is Sibot’s distinctive scratching style. We spoke over e-mail; it seems appropriate as I copy and paste their quotes into a story.
Sibot’s turntables give the music that self-conscious plastic flavour — no simulation, just a derailing and restyling of information. The turntable is a refashioned object, not used to replay recorded sounds as a continuous track, but only an instrument through its ”brokenness” says critic Charles Mudede of Ctheory.net. Of course, only half of the Agents use a turntable, but samplers, DAT machines and computers continue the trend of refashioning information.
Wormstorm also likes to draw on his Pretoria heritage with iconic Afrikaans soundbytes like the Holke Bolke nursery rhyme and phrases like ”Jy stel my teleur. Maar vanaand moet jy darem by ons eet [You dissappoint me. But you must eat with us tonight].” He says he loves the thought of some smoked-up teenager from Pretoria being freaked out when they put the album on for the first time. Having grown up in Pretoria, Wormstorm says, ”To have started making music in Pretoria was cool because there weren’t any other producers to be influenced by. It really felt like I was doing something huge.”
In character, too, the Agents seem to derail social interactions. If you’ve ever walked down Long Street and seen a beat-up Mini rolling past with Sibot and his mane of spikes hanging out of the window, hands trailing on the ground, you’ll know what I mean. And, as Wormstorm says, ”My manager always says that my strength and weakness is the fact that I have no conscience. A little while ago, I read some graffiti on a restroom wall in one of my favorite bars. It said ‘Markus Wormstorm is an asshole’. I disagree. I think I’m funny. And I always note this when introducing myself to people”.
”Dance-floor terrorism probably sums it up best,” states their press release and, indeed, as party-drivers they are a formidable pair. ”We’ve got a staunch live show and, for a market like South Africa, that can really make a world of difference,” says Wormstorm.
Although he is equipped with his laptop and Sibot with his turntables, they promise there is no mouse click-click DJing going on. Says Sibot, ”We both use samplers very loosely — not synced — which gives us freedom to bend, kill or drop as we please.” Mostly the fusion is made up on the spot, although they have recently been indulging in what Sibot calls ”a remix frenzy where each of us makes tunes and then lets the other play with it and give it its own flavour.”
There are three discs in their album. One is the combined effort of the Agents and the other two are by Wormstorm and Sibot respectively. As a solo artist in his own right, having recently released The Wormstorm EP with New York-based glitch-hop label Sound-Ink, Wormstorm warns: ”It’s important to note that the music I produce with Sibot as The Real Estate Agents and the music I produce by myself, are a world apart. Me and Sibot write dance-floor-friendly, booty-shake, down-tempo, swing groove music, while I like to produce nostalgic, rhythmless, drug-inspired noise.”
Yet, Wormstorm’s Agents output is still characteristically more minimalist than Sibot’s chunkier output. Sibot says his ”humble yet buff” style is ”originally from hip-hop. That’s where I got my love for phatness. Since that I’ve been working on bringing rhythms from different genres to hip-hop’s.” But he also adds a Wormstorm-like disclaimer: ”I make some minimal ambient stuff but it’s more for me. I’ve also started a band called Grim Tiny; it’s really fresh. The chunky stuff is for clubs and car systems.”
Most listeners would be reluctant to call the Agents hip-hop, as their press release tries to sell them. Their sound is harder, more asynchronous, than the commercially sold sound. Wormstorm disagrees: ”Hip-hop means innovation — it must never be institutionalised; this is shameful. It’s taking an empty swimming pool and turning it into a half-pipe. It’s taking turntables and turning them into an instrument.” Sibot is more convincing in calling them a loose canon: ”Sometimes we are [hip-hop], other times all hell brakes loose and I wake up after the set wondering what happened!”
Giveaway
Win a copy of Sibot and Marcus Wormstorm’s self-titled, debut album. E-mail you name and postal address to [email protected] by Thursday April 7.