Mzansi Mondays #1

Happy Human Rights Day! Time to celebrate by expressing your right to listen to great local music. Mondays don't always have to be blue, they can be rainbow-coloured and groovy. And the Rainbow Nation can always provide a tasty techni-colourful selection of tunes, which leads us to Mzansi Mondays! Super kiff South African tunes to make Mondays go a little bit more nxa. Ek se.

Our Mzansi Mondays artist this week is Cape Town-based producer Maramza a.k.a Richard The Third. This guy is the man! A white guy who can make some of the coolest and most new age future kwaito beats. Maramza is inventing new genres that combine Mzansi-house, gqom and kwaito style influences with trap, bass and tech elements that retain a unique South African flavour. Chakalaka for your ears.

Please do yourself a favour and visit his Soundcloud page, where you can find plenty plenty original tracks and remixes of some of your favourite local hits. This generous witch doctor of beats provides us with so many exquisite sonic remedies, mahala even, so spread the love and show support. Preview some of his tracks below:











Listen to Maramza's latest EP, Low Magic, as well as some of his previous releases below:

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SHAYNE

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Swords & Sorcery

Stanky funky underground tech medium-depth house stuff. Mysterious powers. Swords & Sorcery. Listen:




Peace and beats!

Shayne

Fake Bluuurd!!

The man, the legend, the mystery. My favourite filthiest funkiest beatmaker in the UK has dropped a brand new house-style remix of Riton's Inside My Head and it's bouncy as fuck. This is in keeping with FB's recent more house-oriented output, which opts for a more chilled out yet funky house sound than his classic evil boy crunchy nasty electronic style. The man can do it all. Check out the track below, it's great!





Now check this out hectic okes, he even released a free download a while ago. And we forgot to tell y'all about it! What a shame, we've been slacking. I blame Tozz. But it's never too late. Don't stop believing! Check it out below, it's called Liberties, and it's more classic Fake Blood. I have no idea where this guy finds all the crazy sounds and samples he uses but they're like nothing I've ever heard before and they're ama zing zing like Zinger wings.





And as if that wasn't enough to satisfy your Blood-lust, check out his Waiting EP released back in March (which we also forgot to tell you about, sorry). It's more mellow than his usual stuff, and more house-y like I mentioned earlier, but in the best possible way. The title track Waiting has a really nice atmosphere to it and is super smooth, with a slick piano riff and guest vocals from the other Black Ghost. Get Myself Together is probably my favourite pick of the bunch, those soulful vocals mixed with those classic Fake Blood synths treat my ears really well. Tell Me Nothing is pretty weird, but I like it, it sounds sinister.





Chilled beats my chinas. Be kind to others and smile.

Shayne

Youan - When You're Around

Wow. This track is madness! Featured on Annie Mac's Free Music Mondays, Youan's track entitled "When You're Around" is a mixture of bass, garage and house with R&B vocals and has a very contemporary UK sound. In fact I think I'll just let the track do the talking, give it a listen below:



PS. You can even download it for free! Sweet deal!

Tozz

Thursday Stumble Vol .2

The time has come for the second edition of the Thursday Stumble, a short and sweet selection of tracks that I like to post on a Thursday (for some reason). This week's selection features a mixture of mellow groovy tracks with a number of heavy dangerous ones, with genres spanning from nu-disco to jackin house to tech to bass to indietronica. Let's see what's on the menu:

Cause & Affect - The Tickle

Some dank heavy bass transforming into funky synths and back again for a dirty rave

Boys Noize - Starwin (download in player)

A new one from Boys Noize, a feel-good nu-disco number with a bit of acid house thrown in for taste

Breach - Jack (Download link)

A dark bassy tech number with vocals from a woman who really wants to jack, whatever that means

Cause & Affect - Pushy Pushy (Download link)

Another much older track from Cause & Affect, disco house at it's grooviest

Bot - One Hour

A scary yet bouncy tech number from one half of the now disbanded Crookers

Marcus Marr - The Music (Download link)

A very mellow and feel-good Daft Punky nu-disco type track found by the Tozz-Man

Madame - Realness (Download link)

Probably the heaviest track on this list, proceed with caution and hide the children from this tech house terror

Yacht - Second Summer (RAC Remix) (Download link)

A cool melancholic indietronic remix from remix-king RAC, also courtesy of Tozz

Hope you enjoy this strange eclectic mix of the tasty tracks that I've stumbled upon throughout my journeys!

Shayne