Growing up, I always admired Cape Town’s electronic music scene. With the sounds of Sibot, Markus Wormstorm and Richard The Third finding their way to me through SL Magazine’s compilation CDs, I got a taste of a scene I’d never get to experience but would always revere through their releases. These days, while I get to visit Cape Town every now and again, I still find myself in the same position of admiring it’s electronic musicians from afar because either they don’t play live or I visit at the wrong times. At least we have Soundcloud, and lately I’ve been racking up the plays on Cape Town label 1991’s page.
I don’t really know all that much about 1991 other than that they’ve been going for about 2 years, their aesthetics are on point, and the music they put out is either wavey or ravey.
If you check out their website, you’ll be treated to slick design, with them using stamps featuring butterflies and Olympic rings as album art, giving things a nostalgic feel. Something about it (probably the rings) reminded me of those Olympic promotional playing cards Caltex once gave out in the 90s.
So far, 1991 have put out music rom 3 artists over the 2 years with most of it coming from Gourmet (wavey) and Maxime Alexander (ravey), with one track by the brilliantly named Constantia Mom (bit of both).
Gourmet makes what he calls Spaghetti Pop which actually reminds me a bit of Thor Rixon’s earlier work with a touch of future bass and chill wave goodness. Thor even jumped in on a remix of Gourmet’s ‘Good With a Nose Bleed‘ a while back. Gourmet’s latest release, ‘Jamaica‘, sets the scene for a night spent under the stars, on the beach in Jamaica, naturally.
While Jamaica is very chilled, the next track on 1991’s Soundcloud isn’t. ‘Fake It‘ by Maxime Alexander gets ravey with some dark and methodical acid techno. I’m already dripping in sweat with my jaw clenched tight just sitting at my desk. I can’t even imagine what this dirty, dirty, dirty piece of electronic music would do in a dark club.
They might not have the deepest lineup, but for my money, 1991 have been putting out some of the dopest electronic music that Cape Town is known for.
