/ 11 September 2020

Soul Assassins: Mx Blouse selects six producers who are vital to their sound

Element
Mx Blouse’s sound emerges from a fiercely experimental outlook and a pool of producers they can trust.

Micr. Pluto and Eye-On Feather

Micr. Pluto and Eye-On Feather are music producers at Jo’burg-based label Subterranean Wavelength. Between the two of them, they produced half of my album, contributing Phuzamanzi, Third Place, Zandla Phezulu and Yesterday’s Nostalgia, respectively. Micr. Pluto produced three of these four songs and is also label co-founder at Subterranean Wavelength. His latest EP, Effervescent Lifeforms, is a prime example of his Afro-futuristic, beat-driven sonic approach, making it ideal for the future-facing sound I was going for. The same is true of Eye-On Feather’s cinematic compositions, perhaps a consequence of his experience as a sound designer.

Bakai

Bakai makes groovy lo-fi that I discovered randomly online. I immediately fell in love with one of his earliest releases, Fruit on the Beach with the fantastic Orah (of Orah and the Kites) on vocals. After Khahlela with Thor Rixon, I was very keen on leaning more towards dance music as opposed to the rap-oriented approach of my early work. Bakai is one of the producers I had on my wishlist as a result of this song. 

Parabyl

Parabyl (Ciaran Slemon) is a Cape Town-based producer I’ve been very lucky to take with me on this journey almost from inception. I’d known him from the party scene for a while before I started making music; I only later found his early work on SoundCloud and so I asked if he’d be keen to collaborate. Throughout my evolution as an artist, Parabyl has been my most reliable collaborator, with an incomparable flexibility no matter where I’ve sought to take my sound. 

Sean Ross

Durbanite Sean Ross and I met at Oppikoppi. He later sent me a beat that we eventually didn’t use, but we made a pact to keep making music together. As Missu, Sean has collaborated with some of my favourite emerging indie acts in the local music scene, including Red Robyn and Robin Thirdfloor. He’s also done some stellar work on collaborations with Bye Beneco. As with all my collaborators and artists whose work I love, Sean’s penchant for experimentation complements my own quite well. 

Thor Rixon

One of the first things Thor Rixon asks whenever we hit the studio is: “What are we doing?” meaning “Where are we going this time?” I love it because it’s never predictable, much like his own music. Although it’s the polar opposite of what I do, I love the variation in his work and his meticulousness with overall production. Thor was actually the first person to suggest to me that I should write more in my mother tongue rather than in English. His own sound varies from eccentric funk, like his catchy latest single Lies, to dancefloor fillers like our collaboration on the house-leaning Khahlela from the album Michele. Thor has given me three of my most popular releases so far: alongside Albany Lore on No Match and Is’phukphuku (featuring Jakinda of Stiff Pap), and Piesang Kop.

This article is part of a partnership between the Mail & Guardian and the Goethe-Institut, which focuses on innovation in all its aspects.