Whether she was conducting a symphony for car hooters, plucking piano strings tied between trees in a Dutch forest or twiddling knobs and programming laptops, Jane Rademeyer has always been interested in sound.
It is quite surprising then that it has taken this thirtysomething so long to record her debut album, the electronic tour de force dubbed I Think a Halo, which maps out an organic-electro soundscape.
‘I always knew I would make my own album,” says Rademeyer as we sit drinking a cold beer in a bikers’ clubhouse in Brixton.
‘I came back from Amsterdam, where I had been working with this really weird performance art company,” she says. ‘I got on a plane and thought I want to go home and make electronica; I want to get myself a computer and push buttons.”
When Rademeyer arrived back in the Cape she hooked up with South Africa’s electro-pioneer Felix Laband, working with him on his debut album.
‘It was only a few years later that I finally got my hands on a computer and began the process of making my own album,” says Rademeyer.
She soon relocated to Johannesburg and finished what she calls her ‘weird little demo”, which she played to a few industry types, including Brett Ellis and James Macdonald, who were in the process of putting together the new independent label Uncorp Records.
Ellis and Macdonald were suitably impressed and it was agreed that I Think a Halo would be the debut release on Uncorp.
‘It was such a weird demo,” says Rademeyer. ‘It’s just amazing that they saw something in there.”
But a week later Rademeyer’s house was broken into and her hard drive stolen with the only copy of the demo on it.
She had to start over, which completely changed her debut album with only two of the original tracks surviving.
Rademeyer says most of the songs on her album started out as instrumentals, but after a while she got bored with them and started to sing over them using her bag of vocal-effects trickery to create a new sound.
‘I didn’t really like the way my voice sounded,” she says. ‘It didn’t work raw with the tracks and my voice sounded odd.”
The end result is an intimate, fragile electronic album that incorporates subtle jazz touches, glitchy trip-hop beats, interesting string arrangements and breathy vocals into a rich tapestry of sound.
I Think a Halo is not a party album; it’s the kind of album you listen to while entertaining friends in your lounge, maybe when you’ve just got home from the party and are enjoying a nightcap or another vice of choice.
Whether it’s the doo-wop electro of Rainbow, the Tom Waits-esque trip-hop of Tiddely Pumthing or the Aphex Twin-styled beats of Blue Beard that blow your mind, there are too many highlights on I Think a Halo to ignore this record.
Having launched the album at the end of November with her first performance with a full band, she says the plan is to tour the album, which is something she is looking forward to.
‘I was worried about how the album would translate live,” she says. ‘But it sounds great.”
With her producer Stoki on board, as well as fellow Uncorp collaborators such as Andy Sherman, Draco and Joao Oreccia, this intimate electro album has become a full band production that will have audiences in a state of bliss this summer.
Rademeyer is not keen to rest on her laurels. She informs me that she has bought a keyboard and is busy writing material for the next album.
‘Next album?” I ask. ‘The second record should have been finished by now,” she says, looking frustrated. ‘It’s time for a new one. But I have no idea what it will sound like.”
Two new kids on the block
South African electro and hip-hop fans look out — there is a new kid on the block, well two actually.
Uncorp Records and Black Economics are the new labels launched by Brett Ellis and James Macdonald, who run the Wounded Buffalo audio and video production studio in Milpark, Johannesburg.
Uncorp is their electro label, while Black Economics is the hip-hop label.
Wounded Buffalo operates as a sub-publisher for renowned British independent label Rough Trade, so the company’s local artists have an opportunity to get picked up for European release if their sounds impress.
Following the release of Jane Rademeyer’s I Think a Halo, Uncorp plans to release a double album by electro artist and producer Stoki dubbed Oo Muzik and Zz Muzik, as well as a compilation called Uncorp the First and a sound collage by Andy Sherman, which will comprise music created from 36 dictaphone tape recordings.
Ellis says the label is in discussions with electro artist Joao Oreccia, from the popular band Five Men Three Missing, to release a solo album.
Black Economics meantime have an album by up-and-coming hip-hop artist Draco called The Arrival, ready and waiting for the new year, as well as an album by Sherman’s humorous hip-hop alter ego Wikki Why-T called Supahero.
Ellis says they are proud to have released Rademeyer’s debut album and see it as a first step in her very successful career, as well as a great start for their fledgling labels.