Music
Local Indie Labels: Mushroom Hour Half Hour
On the Joburg-based label paying homage and breaking the rules
In the deep archives of the Mushroom Hour, a recording session featuring ntate-moholo (grandfather) Lefifi Tladi lies unmixed. It's a rarity from a few years back, before the collective made the leap from releasing vinyl-only mixes, and sessions featuring poets, musicians and vocalists on Soundcloud, and became a fully-fledged, independent, experimental label with an affinity towards vinyl releases.
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"We don't refer to experimental as a sound frequency, but rather as an approach to practice," says co-founder Andrew Curnow. "We were initially a radio show on a friend of mine's pirate radio station." He, along with the two Nhlanhla's -- Mngadi and Masondo -- hit the road when the radio station shut down.
"It was experimental in many respects. We didn't know how to record. We didn't know how to produce. We didn't know what the outcome would be. The musicians didn't know each other," Andrew shares.
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This vibrational approach is what made releases such as 2019's Spaza groundbreaking. The album was monumental in that it challenged the assumed 'sound' of South African jazz, and was an improvised effort recorded in front of close friends one afternoon at the Spaza Art Gallery in Troyeville, Johannesburg.
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Spaza has also evolved. The label is toying with the idea of making it a revolving cast of musicians. Their forthcoming release shall feature music recorded as part of the soundtrack to film director Sifiso Khanyile's UPRIZE! documentary. Here's an overview of the other releases on the label.
Sibusile Xaba - "Unlearning/ Open Letter to Adoniah" (2017)
Says Sibusile: "I had independently recorded Unlearning before Open Letter, and was digesting the idea of releasing the music independently. But I took my time, and in the process of this meditation, trying to find answers, and a way forward more than anything, came these dreams."
This is when he called his friend Thabang Tabane to assist him in developing the music further.
"Thabang was like let's hit it! He was going deeper within himself at that time. He came, and he transformed the music. We had recorded the Spaza with ntate Lefifi in Attridgeville. I spoke to the Mushroom Hour cats and asked them to record Open Letter... They came to U-The Space in Sunnyside, set up, listened to the music. That day, they changed their whole operation. They became a record label after hearing us play."
Sibusile's album became the first to be released on the Mushroom Hour.
dumama + kechou - "Buffering Juju" (2020)
At the beginning of February 2019, the Mushroom Hour team decamped to the Nirox Sculpture Park for a week, where they joined the nomadic folk duo dumama + kechou during an artist residency. The purpose was to work on the music of Buffering Juju.
Reflecting on the music, dumama offers: “It’s a storyline. It’s open-ended in the sense that there is no direct end to it. Even the way we set it up, each song is kind of spilling into the next, or spilling into some sonic field that comes back all the time. So it’s definitely more of a journey than song, song, song… planned.”
The record wears its influences on its sleeve. In doing so, the music takes unexpected twists and turns. A song might start off saying one thing, head out in all sorts of directions, and still make a coherent point at the end. It's that dope.
Spaza – “Spaza” (2019)
Upon its release in 2019, this project set out to challenge ideas that were starting to form around what sound the Mushroom Hour label is associated with. Recorded a few years prior, as an entirely improvised musical piece performed at the Spaza Art Gallery, the project succeeded in solidifying the label's international standing.
Publications such as Wired, Vinyl Factory and the Guardian are taking note of every release, while platforms like Bandcamp have repeatedly shown love. In South Africa, there's a reluctance to take to the music; to own it, to write about it, to broadcast it. Time will tell, but the team is not holding its breath as they pursue greater heights.