Top 5 SA House Music Albums of 2015
Depending who you ask, SA house music had a medium to good 2015. For seemingly another year those with malleable music tastes often found themselves leaning towards the ever-blossoming hip hop scene.
Events like Fill Up The Dome and the numerous platinum selling albums made for a notable eclipsing of a once indomitable SA house music scene… at least in the media.
This though doesn’t mean SA house music didn’t hold its own. We still got our steady stream of international DJs and producers flocking to the motherland to perform alongside our finest homegrown artists and there was always at least one great track vying for the top spot on the charts alongside hip hop bangers and love ballads, plus there was no short supply of music festivals where we could leave our inhibitions at the bottom of a plastic cup.
‘Our scene’ may not have been the hottest property on the market in 2015 but that didn’t stop those with unwavering love for the genre from presenting some great bodies of work this annum.
Whether deep house sounds are your forte or you preference lies with pulsating Afrocentric rhythms, someone, known or unknown, made an album to your liking and it was great!
So with 2016 now upon us – Happy New Year by the way, we took a little time out to sift through the last year’s SA House Music releases and pick what we believed were the top five albums for 2015.
And while there were lots of impressive records to choose from we decided to break it down to the ones that were creatively diverse without being all over the place, had a semblance of commercial success and that simply made for great listening from start to finish.
Here are our Top Five SA House Music Albums for 2015
Black Coffee – Pieces of Me
Quite easily the most anticipated album of the year, Black Coffee’s Pieces of Me not only gave fans what they’d been longing after for the better part of two years, it also didn’t waste time dominating radio charts and scooping platinum plaques. In our review of the album we couldn’t help but feel like it was a solid offering and yet it also had a tough time out doing previous releases by Black Coffee – this hasn’t changed. That aside though, it’s commercial success and widespread appeal, not to mention a viral dance challenge, made it one of the year’s highlights and something tells us the album will collect its fair share of awards in 2016 too.
Read our track-by-track review of Pieces of Me here [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/217501945" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /]
XtetiQsoul – Fantasy
XtetiQsoul isn’t quite what you’d call a household name. As a matter of fact it would be safe to say he is one of the lesser-known producers on our list. This however hasn’t stopped him from making his productions stalwarts on the playlists of any DJ looking to turn up the party by a few degrees. His 2015 long player, Fantasy, has a distinctive tribal percussive feel to it that has becoming rather popular in recent times and yet it manages to escape the cut and paste drum patterns that have taken over the production styles of many local producers looking to make a ‘club hit’. A fair number of singles from the album were also regular fixtures on several international podcasts and celebrity mixes, although at the time they remained unidentified as exclusives.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/227152185″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]DJ Shimza – Shimuzic
DJ Shimza had long said that while he had a healthy collection of productions at his disposal, he was going to take his time before releasing a full-length album. So after a lengthy wait and sinister teasers, we were finally blessed with Shimuzic. If you followed Shimza enough, be it on radio or at his live shows, the album proved to be exactly what you’d expect from the young Tembisa native. It makes you want to dance… a lot! And yet deliberately soulful Rhodes pianos and the occasional use of sultry voiced singers balances out the production and makes it just as enjoyable in your earphones as it would be on stadium speakers. Plus the mixed version leaves you feeling like you’re having your own personal party with the DJ himself.
Read our interview with Shimza in 2015 [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/207373029" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /]
Deep Xcape – Pandora’s Box
While South Africa has long carried the pulse of house music, there are select producers who manage to transcend the trappings of predictability and create an offering that’s sincerely a cut above the rest. That collective of musos includes Katlehong’s production duo, Deep Xcape. From the onset with releases like After The Rain they showed that they yearned to operate at a higher standard with their soulful edge and uncharacteristic high level of musicality. Pandora’s Box is what I believe the young ones would call ‘expensive music’, a melting pot of unashamedly deep, quality and effortlessly timeless sonics. It’ll undoubtedly be one that’s kept on repeat for seasons to come. SA house music at its finest!
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/206044800″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]Mi Casa – Home Sweet Home
Something tells me Mi Casa won’t be ours for much longer. Like Trevor Noah, Lira or Black Coffee, the trio seems to be knocking on the door of international residency. Their third studio album, ‘Home Sweet Home’ is the greatest testament to their upward trajectory. They sound no different to when we first heard them willing us on to Jika and yet there is maturation in the group’s music making. They sound more polished. In addition their list of guest artist doesn’t appear contrived. There’s no appearance for the sake of having a big name on the album. Instead whether J-Something is trading harmonies with Tortured Soul’s John-Christian Urich or Dr Duda is sharing the faders with Rancido, there’s synergy in the work. If for nothing else, Home Sweet Home is quite honestly the best put-together SA house music album of the year.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/234807667″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
