Foto Na Dans - music video

Hou Hou Hande Bymekaar
Foto Na Dans

(from the album Intervensie, 2007)
Producer: Stephanus Rabie
Editor: Eben Smal

They've been quiet for months while their lead vocalist debates with angels on the fate of his chords.

A few well-placed pixels were all it took to remind me of what I already know and miss so much : this band has a charisma that oozes the kind of cool we hardly ever see in Africa. From the frisson of flicking hair to standing still while the sound pours torrents around them, they embody their sound on stage. The power of their music lies in its restraint, and the restraint of their power propels it.

The video has a distinct doccie feel, but is edited with careful attention to the song's pitch and metre. In effect, you're backstage and on-stage at once. Another sophisticated product from the princes of Afrikaans rock.

No, there isn't aKing in Afrikaans rock. (only old laurels that have by now been pressed between the heartfelt bosoms of wrinkling wives and budding bokkies making points in their pointy boots.) Romeo is dead. This is a new generation of romanto-realists; Foto Na Dans have captured the moment.

It gives me hope. For local music. And for the people it speaks to and stems from. That's You. Me. And Them.

(more on the making of the video here )