DJ 0.000001: Recombinant Shangaan Mixtape (Nyege Nyege Tapes, 2023)

June 6, 2023 at 8:27 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

DJ 0.000001: Recombinant Shangaan Mixtape

I miss Shangaan Electro. The compilation Honest Jon’s put out years ago and the Nozinja album on Warp were such remarkable, refreshing, creative releases and I was hoping we’d hear more from that particular scene, but there haven’t been any other releases of that magnitude of this type of music. Thankfully people are still making these sounds and pushing it further, even if it isn’t getting much outside exposure. This mixtape features tracks made between 2015 and 2022, and it’s generally glitchier and less vocal-heavy than the earlier Shangaan Electro releases. There’s touches of the playful, sweet melodies from the older tracks, but it’s generally more frantic, with loops that stutter and clatter before racing into the next section. Yet it also feels pretty fluid for a mix of such frenetic music. A sample of Tshetsha Boys’ “Nwa Pfundla” (my favorite track from the 2010 comp) is chewed up and spit out near the beginning of the second side, seemingly as a point of comparison for how the style has evolved since then. The second side in general has a greater presence of harder moments and more intense edits, but still ends up bouncy and playful.

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