Conjured from smoke fumes, long nights, and worn-out feet, DJ Spoko and Matias Aguayo will be dropping a new EP on February 28th, titled Dirty Dancing. The music tastes of Southern Hemisphere fusions: the sweet velvet wallpaper lining Johannesburg’s Kitchener’s bar; the steam of a Cómeme night in Medellin, Cologne or Buenos Aires; the multi-rhythmic tongues of Tshwane’s Atteridgeville. All these timbers travelling to meet, somewhere after dark, in a dimly-lit studio.
Dirty Dancing will be released under the label, Cómeme: their first Johannebsurg recording project. Founded in 2009 by Chilean-German, Matias Aguayo, the label describes itself as a ‘collective fantasy’, drawing together an assemblage of sonic misfits, working on the frayed edges of musical genre and expectation. Its experimental artists weave sounds from London to Cologne, Santiago de Chile to Buenos Aires, Mexico City to Moscow. And now Johannesburg.
Cómeme has been in an ongoing auditory dialogue with Johannesburg’s electronic music scene. Tracks like Pata pata and El Sucu Tucu are laced with South African beat-making and lyrical contortionism. Meanwhile, Cómeme tracks have also animated some of Johannesburg’s most vibrant dancefloors.
DJ Spoko has been at the centre of Cómeme’s love affair with Gauteng. Partner of DJ Mujava, he wrote and produced the dancefloor anthem ‘Township Funk’. Propelled by the groove, Township Funk fused dark sultry base with a vexing hook — the twisted, teasing funk of your ninetees dialup tone. Founder of Bacardi House, DJ Spoko says his music has had one purpose only: to make people dance, to make them sweat. His production, a tribute to life, was spawned in Atteridgeville Pretoria, where he lived with his father, alongside a grave site. In the late 90s, cue marshals at the taxi rank helped disseminate Bacardi House through the province’s mobile sound systems.
It’s no wonder that the final track on the new EP is titled Taxi Rank Closing, inspired by the rev and reverberation of South Africa’s informal music promoters. The EP includes collaborations with Elbee Bad and Moonchild, and is crafted unapologetically for the dancefloor. Each track — Dirty Dancing, Ghost of Dombolo and Something About the Groove — calling us to move.
It’s an EP to anticipate: music for pure pleasure, molded from our after-dark creativity.