‘Screen’ test for the musical ear
PEACH van Pletzen’s reputation as a cutting-edge producer and allaround musical genius precedes him. This Pretoria-based musician has produced songs for Van Coke Kartel, Tamara Dey, Tumi and the Volume and, of course, his own bands including the adventurous, authentic Afrikaans rap group, Bittereinder.
This trio consists of Van Pletzen, the deep rapping of Jaco van der Merwe and his powerful stage presence, as well as the musical and visual skills of Louis Minnaar, who also happens to be an awardwinning music video director. All in all, there was no way Bittereinder could not succeed.
They were also destined to work together.
Recalls Van Pletzen: “When I was in Standard 7 (Grade 9) I went to a battle of the bands and saw this group Silt perform. The lead singer was Jaco. I said to my friends that we would enter the following year and we would win and that is exactly what happened when I formed Shu.”
Over the next seven years Shu would become part of a vibrant Pretoria band scene that included bands with impossible names like Wrestlerish, Kidofdoom, Isochronous and Yesterday’s Pupil.
“Seven years of rock came before seven years of whatever this is,” he says, referring to Bittereinder’s third album, Skerm. Whatever this is, indeed. The concept alone is a complete mindbender.
“Skermmeans ‘screen’ in Afrikaans and basically the screen is where most of life happens in the 21st century. No matter what you do, you’re always in front of a screen, from your cellphone to computer screens, television screens.”
Then there is the first song, Ampersand, which is about the listener. Van der Merwe, who writes all the lyrics, poses the questions – what gives the music weight? What if there are people making music out there and it could be a favourite song, but it will never get massive commercial exposure?
That Van der Merwe is an excellent wordsmith, there is no doubt and Van Pletzen is not afraid to sing his praises. He believes Van der Merwewas destined to do Afrikaans rap even though he had rapped in English since his rapcore bands in the late ‘90s.
“Jaco approached me to do some Afrikaans rap songs and left his lyric file behind in the studio. I read it and realised that this was not a once-off, that he was always meant to rap in Afrikaans. He has an insane talent for writing.”
What is so cool about hanging with Van Pletzen is how relaxed he is and how oblivious he is to the high esteem he is held in by his colleagues. Veterans like Dey have nothing but good things to say about his production.
As he takes me through some of his favourite songs, I get to see into his creative mind.
He plays his favourite song, Klankanatomie, in which Van der Merwe compares everyday life and routine to music and musical terms.
“It is a little bit poppy, but it came out exactly the way I envisioned it.”
I listen to the melancholy vibe which is bizarrely quite happy and if Nicki Minaj is the ultimate in pop music, this is not a pop song.
Van Pletzen has a philosophical answer he has clearly pondered for a while: “There is a big difference between pop music and commercial music. People like Rihanna spend R5 million on a song farm. What McDonalds did with food, commercial music did the same with pop. Pop comes from a real place, where someone wrote the song because it needed to come out.
“I cannot produce an album that I don’t like.”
The final track is the title track and their first single which has been submitted to commercial radio and (surprise, surprise) been rejected. Again, I wonder what they were thinking with this move. The song takes up where Battery 9 left off all those years back. It’s industrial beats meets hard-core rap, not radio-friendly at all. Bittereinder’s philosophy is that if you are accepted on commercial radio you have lost your edge.
Van Pletzen gets more philosophical about the cover which includes a golden pineapple above their heads: “The proper question is, why the golden pineapple? If you think the golden pineapple is normal, it’s not. It’s the desire to take something ordinary and turn it into bling. We consume more in a day in terms of media than we did in a month in the ’80s.”
Bittereinder’s Skermis possibly the most challenging release of 2014.