PheliMuncasi - Izigqinamba (2024)

Durban-based gqom futurists Phelimuncasi continue unpicking their musical seams on this latest borderless statement, teaming up with Metal Preyers to venture further into the desolate unknown. The group met up in Nyege Nyege's Kampala studio last year, where they spent three days engineering a sequence of tracks that turned the acts' respective sounds inside out, stretching urgent vocals over mutating backdrops of time-stretched electronic drums, saturated noise and unstable synths.

The album follows on from 2022's critically acclaimed 'Ama Gogela', an impeccably engineered overload of twitchy, dancefloor-focused hybrid club experiments that allied the trio with a slew of the scene's most important beatmakers. Hackett meanwhile was last seen breathing eccentricity and high drama into surrealist folk tales and vintage synth music on the psychedelic 'Shadow Swamps'. And while the divergent pairing might be unexpected, it's rich with revelation; both both Metal Preyers and Phelimuncasi wander far outside their comfort zones, the Durban trio's prominent words and cadences booming over Metal Preyers marshy productions like cryptic transmissions from the far future.

Opening track 'Gidigidi ka Makhelwane' erupts in a fizz of beatbox percussion that loops noisily alongside Makan Nana, Khera and Malathon's stirring vocals, delivered in their local isiZulu tongue. Metal Preyers's process is relatively restrained, offering Phelimuncasi the space to work their rousing magic unimpeded and adding punctuation where necessary. But when he takes more of a destructive role, it's just as impressive: on 'Gqom slowgen Chant', he corrupts his rhythm into a ritualistic pulse, letting the trio's words melt into metallic clicks and nauseous atmospheres.

Elsewhere on 'Mgiligi wableka', Phelimuncasi's words create a rousing rhythm against a low-n-slow gqom thud from Metal Preyers, and on 'Coffin Roller' he brings to mind '80s video nasty soundtracks, toying with analog synth sequences against Makan Nana, Khera and Malathon's distant chants. 'Like A Corpse' might be the album's most hollowed-out banger, turning the beat into a chopped 'n screwed drag that scrapes clamorously against Phelimuncasi's gurgling raps. Needless to say, there's nothing else like this.

Tracklist
1. Gidigidi Ka Makhelwane (03:32)
2. Ayi Ayi We Crazy (05:16)
3. Gqom Slowgen Chant (03:12)
4. Mgiligi Wabaleka (03:47)
5. Ngicela Siqoze (03:10)
6. Coffin Roller (02:18)
7. Khala Ngiyabaleka (03:11)
8. Like A Corpse (04:32)
9. Last Flutter (02:09)