When I last sat down with At Nel, aka Somerfaan, in 2007 to talk about his recently released second album, Kyk of Sy Kyk (Roar), he was raving about hip-hop producer El-P and the sound this left-field producer had created, which he had branded “iron galaxy music”.
“It’s hip-hop-inspired music but it sounds like giant craters and things crashing in the sky,” Nel told me at the time, as we sipped whisky at his diningroom table.
“I only listen to left-field hip-hop. I have no time for that shit like ‘look how big my dick is’ or ‘I made it and you didn’t’.”
I found Nel’s obsession interesting, because although Kyk of Sy Kyk had some definite influences from the worlds of hip-hop and electronica, it still very much felt like a rock-based record, albeit a very experimental one.
Kyk of Sy Kyk would go on deservedly to win the 2008 South African Music Award (Sama) for best alternative Afrikaans album, but to me it was already clear that Nel had moved on.
Even as we sat talking about his new record, in the back of his mind he was plotting his next assault on sound — and I was intrigued.
Four years later we have the new Somerfaan album and I am glad to report that Nel has gone out on a limb and produced the album of his career so far.
Apocalyptic vision
When I listen to it I hear the Âinfluence of EL-P, a sound I have become a lot more familiar with since then, but also more recent musical developments such as the last Animal Collective and Panda Bear albums, the work of MF Doom, Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and a whole host of dubstep producers, including Burial and Kode 9.
To sum it up, Somerfaan’s new album, Laaste Somer, is a ride through an apocalyptic vision that sounds dirty, scuzzy and, to put it bluntly, brash.
It kicks like a mule and enchants like a mystical vision, sometimes achieving both in the confines of the same song.
The fact that Nel has reinvented himself with the new album hardly surprises me; after all, this is the same artist who started his last album with a boxing match between Somerfaan version 1.0 and ÂSomerfaan version 2.0.
Laaste Somer (Roar) also begins with death and destruction as Somerfaan witnesses a massive fireball striking the Earth (Giant Fireball). It sounds like Flying Lotus meets Primal Scream.
This moment is captured on the brilliant album cover by artist Huyser Burger, a former colleague of Nel’s in Afrikaans industrial outfit Battery 9, who also pops up with some rhymes on the scuzzy electro track Eindelose Somer.
Another early highlight is I Saw the Whole Thing Happening, a Âgorgeous instrumental track that sits somewhere between Brian Eno and Burial, but with more of a Âpsychedelic edge.
The middle of the album is beefed up with some magnificent collaborations. Johannesburg electronic Âproducer Jane Rademeyer pops up on Bring Back the Humans, an apocalyptic view of the future in which humans no longer rule the Earth, and on No Blue Skies, a song that conflates lamenting the dying Earth with a whimsical love song while the music warbles, bleeps and bangs in all the right places.
Difficult third-album paradigm
Ex-Nude Girl Arno Carstens also features on the gothic-electro of Unveil Yourself, reminding us that he is actually a great singer when he stops trying to be a pop star.
Wonderboom’s frontman, Cito, and guitarist Anton L’Amour also pop up for guest slots.
Without a doubt Laaste Somer is the best Somerfaan album so far, but at the same time it plays into that stereotypical difficult third-album paradigm.
This is not the kind of album you will chill with late at night, unless you are engaging in a narcotics fest.
It is challenging music, as all the best music is, and that is what makes it so damn satisfying.
Somerfaan is making a really big statement in 2011; don’t be surprised if he walks off with another Sama gong.