BPM / Beats People Music

One of the few independent print magazines focusing exclusively on original South African music

BPM Feb 2007 (for Plus 1 Media Productions)

Josie Field
Mercury
(Gallo 2006)

If you’re Josie Field, you’ve got a lifetime of nurtured talent and latent emotion to channel into music, so you don’t go for fifteen minutes of fame. You go for fifteen beautiful, bleeding ballads that use some of the best local production and inspiration on offer. The result is a debut album that belies her twenty two years of feeling and finding out how things work. The only thing time that “raw” can be used to describe such a refined folk pop compilation is when it comes to honest, emotive power. Josie’s voice is haunting without being hallowed. She can be sweet and stinging in the same breath, and she doesn’t hold back. Don’t expect it to sound the same way twice –the album’s aptly titled.

BPM Nov/Dec 2006 (for Plus 1 Media Productions)

Velve
Bloody Mettle (2006)

Velve’s Selling Skin is borderline beautiful, like the gush of blood from some dark emotion. It pelts out metalesque melodies that grab your heart by the throat, shake like a mad dog, then gingerly put you down like a sad angel. Trucker’s voice is grazed silk on an exodus from the abyss of edgy emotion. Wise and wistful lyrics are tempered by the constant heat of Charles Mulder’s powerful guitar and Wouter Burger’s baaad bass combo that tracks its nails down the back of Dylan Phelan’s angry drums. It’s a wave crashing down on you, a torrent of feeling in a tide of solved sound. The dark sun that shines through Velve’s incredible energy will leave you “positively magnetised”.

BPM Nov/Dec 2006 (for Plus 1 Media Productions)

All units go
words: Jess Henson

If you go out in the hoods these days, you’re likely to get a surprise. Genres that used to sit and stay are fusing in front of our eyes. The creative cradle of the Cape is home to some seriously inspired musicians, and the effects of global musical warming are reaching deep south. The migration of twitches and glitches to and from the mother city welcomes another swell summer of indigenous noise. The world turns, the seasons change; Justin’s nose – er – knows.

Catch Justin and Matthew de Nobrega, Goran and Aleks Manojlovic together after hours, and they’ll probably be rocking any one of their diverse audiences through a happy, high-octane, warp-speed musical mélange without missing a beat. This is global afterglow. This is Unit.R

I recently sniffed around the strategic backstage of this emerging quartet of red-blooded men only to find they’re very much in touch with their yin. They multitask. On stage, they swing from one instrument to the next with the finesse more kin to the deadlier (is it fair to say ‘fairer’?) of the species. In the studio, they swap roles, write tracks together, and finish each other’s sentences. They hold down day jobs, too, and then jump around for the crowds like jubilant jelly beans, smiling as if life’s a grand joke and they get it.

The two sets of brothers make one strong sound. No mish-mashed musical leftovers here. With masterful articulation they sample a variety of melodies and rhythms that resonate. Their signature is a distinct, catchy and danceable mix of synth/pop and proto-punk electronic styles that leaves you feeling invigorated and happy. While they make a religion of having fun on stage, in person, their humility belies this charisma.

“We’re not serious or sexy,” smiles Goran. Each accomplished musicians in their own right; they’re directed towards professionalism by the organic flow of their combined passion. They’re internally managed and a household name on the live scene. Though they don’t dig for gigs; they don’t lack them. They don’t actively seek promotional rigs like interviews, but readily agreed to mine, even on a sleepy, Spring Sunday.

I met with the chattier half of the group, Goran and Justin, who made up for the ailing and a.w.o.l. (br)others’ input by offering twice the usual volume of information, volleying conversation like a Ping-Pong ball and covering more ground in an hour than I covered the whole day in my flu-stewed stupor. What a mix!

And it’s all about mixing. Fusion is exceeding its previous parameters as a trend in food, fashion, and media, to take on all creative realms, and is infused into Unit.R’s style by a characterized blend of genres and instruments. From Kokstad to Belgrade, from folk to techno, these guys juggle diverse influences with independent and collective projects that converge on their love of music. What started as a hobby has grown into a collaborative relationship welcomed by wide audiences with wider smiles.

Being producers as well as electric maestros, their musical family crosses blood and history to give you a sound that knows how to get around. They site their genetic and artistic brotherhood as a source of growing musical synergy, and have recently moved from composing tracks separately to writing individual tracks collectively. The result carries a sense of connectedness from production to performance.

Their tastes range from Dylan to Deathcab, the Beatles to Zombie. Goran and Aleks’s childhood in Eastern Europe exposed them to Balkan music, replete with roving Gypsy bands and mad wedding parties. Justin (Considerate Builders Scheme) and Matthew (Timecode) dabble successfully in other projects involving Electronica and Trance. Playing to diverse audiences in warehouses, house clubs, and spring valleys has rubbed off on their dynamic style.

The band itself works dynamically, too. With definite strengths, but no fixed roles, they swap instruments as dictated by each track. Playing musical chairs allows them greater compositional freedom and frees up energy for performance. Enthusiastic audiences are proof of it.

While they don’t model themselves on an image of the chick-pulling rock star, their allure is undeniably infectious. These four put energy into their work, are led by inspiration, and never stop rocking. They say they’re not serious or sexy; I disagree. It’s sexy not to take yourself seriously; it’s seriously cool to live your art.

And the name? On this one point they remain elusive. “Let it mean what it does to people. There is a meaning, but - ” Goran’s looks at his burger and Justin looks slightly puzzled. Have they been hitting the karaoke bars a little too hard lately? Or are the shifting winds tweaking Justin’s proboscis? A forgotten secret is a beautiful and dangerous thing.

So remember to diarise the launch of their new music video and EP at Mercury Live, 24 November 2006.

Word up, boys. Don’t stop!

www.unit-r.com
www.myspace.com/unitr