Inge, naked

See? You read “Inge, naked” and you come right here, don’t you? But this one’s not for you.

It’s for our milky-skinned diva of darkness who doesn’t need to remove one thread to reveal herself. Unfortunately the likes of Josie, Sannie, Tasha, Thandiswa and Simphiwe are not necessarily going to applaud her latest contribution to the media’s perception of women in the music industry.

Uh uh, Inge

Yes, we love your aloof yet pointed stare. Yes, your eyes flare. Yes, you are a diva we can’t quite believe is ours (so much so, perhaps, that we didn’t support you and Paul and Fuzzy and Sean enough. And that’s our loss. And we know it. And some of us are doing what we can to re-design the rules.) But

This. Is unnecessary.

Because. This is not Hollywood.

(this is my adulterated version of the cover shot of Cape Town's Myweek mag - April edition. It appears without my desultroy enquiry in its original form)

And the media is not a pimp, even though it punts itself as one. It’s a platform for information. And your body is not a product, even though it’s young and healthy enough to stand for everything that consumerism bases itself on – vanity, greed, beauty. You represent music, and you represent women. I don’t care if you didn’t ask for the latter role – your very presence and potency in an industry dominated (at least on stage) by men makes it part of the deal you didn’t make when you put yourself on public display. And that deal, baby, can make or break you as a self respecting artiste.

Lathering yourself, half-dressed, all over the cover of another free magazine (that nobody asked for) which (mistakenly) posits itself as some kind of reference of Cape Town cool is crummy. As if cool can be snapped and slapped onto a page and dubbed with words that are shallower than shamelessness and half-conscious to boot in the first place. It’s a misconception. As is thinking that your body is going to sell your voice.

You have intellectual property rights. You are the business. You make the decisions. (that's what independent means, it isn't just a synonym for South African über cool.) There are more than enough photographers willing to do a shoot that will do you justice, give imagery of you the gravity your gifts deserve, give it your edgy glamour without you having to show the world what you only show a few people. You’re not an almost-famous, schizophrenic soap star, you’re not a bimbette trying to get your pop schlock seen and not (really) heard. You’re an undeniably able singer and performer who has garnered enough respect on the scene to be seen for her talent rather than her twat. So what the fuck are you doing on the cover in your granny’s bathing suit?

Do us a favour, and stop selling your skin.

Disclaimer. This is not some kind of masked nastiness. I love Inge’s work (though the sounds coming from the Inge Beckman trio need another few months in the practise room). It was Inge who originally inspired me to write about SA music. I bumped into lark one dark long street festival night and was riveted and reborn by her world class talent. I’d been roving that world for years, and the only time I had for SA music was when BOO! graced the stage. This was the beginning of the second wave of music that we are now seeing flourish (and perhaps phade if we don’t pull together). Inge stopped me dead in my tracks with her life threatening bjorkgonemadesque motions and her sirenhowl and changed my world. Well, Inge and Paul. Such a brilliant union.

lark i

a long time ago, before i was a blog, i was a little sleepless thought in the night. lark was one of the first bands i fiddled with...

written March2006
@midnight in Liliwhite
Tamboerskloof

She is light. and dark.
He is light. and heavy.
They are lark.

Divine delinquency might begin to describe the cutting edge musical collaboration that is Paul and Inge. Nothing will illustrate the duo’s unique sound, one that I am indelibly proud to have emerging from Cape Town.

The first time I heard them - an unsuspecting and dazed trawler at the Long Street Festival - I stood riveted. My ears were educated. In retrospect, associations like Björkesque Goth, gypsy Electronica and dark, circus fusion rose to the surface of my mind and settled in a swill of inferior adjectives. Words fail against Lark’s twisty, testy vine of sound. Descriptions are lost in translation. Apt words are possibly those they created themselves; Lark tongue licks your ears and tickles your (temporal) lobes with ingenious incomprehension.

Inge’s masterful and edgy harmonies smack conventional melody structures upside the lunar tides of Paul’s dark and sexy beats without selling out to melancholy. She glides between vivid, challenging emotions and murmuring ebbs with the sharpness and ease of a burning blade through ice. Her suave, unscripted adaptability reminds me of another musical chameleon on the scene who seems to have gone from suspenders to soap operas, somehow. (could Inge be chris in drag? Has it all gone pop?…) Paul throws crisp, intelligent digital pinches into the flawless mix, and belies it all with a bonedeep, bloodthick bass that is his trademark and towline.

Creativity takes no prisoners; we are all its victims. Lark is making its trademark on our musical souls!

lark in the dark

Cubs and clubbers were tucked into the armchair’s embrace like tik heads in a taxi to nowhere on Saturday night. Stuck in the dark in an ocean of arms and legs, I was wondering what makes Lark so powerful that fans will happily pack the floor to the wall so that they can’t move to music that was made for wild, intricate dancing.

Beyond their wicked beats and weird words, there’s something else that makes this formula work for the local underworld. I stepped up onto a tiny gap on the steps at the back, and as the boys and girl came into view, it came to me. It’s the sexy, the cool, and the old school.

Let me start with the last. Old school. Which doesn’t mean old. Or school. Old school means the hard road won by a rich musical journey. Any musician worth their weight in Jamisons will attest to the truism that if you’ve survived the biz for longer than it takes to grow a fair sized pine, your music is informed by many influences, elbow grease and creative growth, and probably worth listening to. Musically, trends come and go. Bands with them. Music has always been the expression of emotion and environment and these things are always changing. Music moves. But the makers (do they make? Or do they channel?) that have stood the test of time have something else to offer the score. Perspective. Those that survived the lean times, in between waves of musical magic, when the pickings were pretty lame and partners in prime so hard to find that you could count the number of good bands on one hand, are the ones that bring something new to the new. Lucky us, it’s the epoch of expansion for cape town sound, not a melodic low tide, and Lark’s Fuzzy is no fool. He’s been around the block, and he brings a brilliance that grounds their sound.

Old school : check.
Cool : heck,
that’s mr Ressel. At once the most unassuming soul and boomingly brilliant compositional musician, he straddles the sceptres of popularity and authenticity like it’s just another day on a two headed horse. Aka Humanizer, the beat bandit holds the fort without touching it, and when he nods his head, the cape town underground nods back. (I think that noggin bop has started a trend that is making kundalini teachers smile and opening club goers third eye...)

Sean Ou Tim is the other four letter word in the rig. if his notoriety on the scene doesn't precede him, you don't really know new wave jazz...Two four letter words you might want to remember when wondering about the particular powers that make this troop trippy.

And then sex. aint gonna be no clitglytchfusiongothicelectoronica fame without it. Inge is sex. O - inge is a lot of other things, but what she brings the stage and the band’s potence is a certain brand of erotic, aural arousal. It’s in her voice, it’s in her fingertips, it’s in those snake eyes that would slice you to pieces if she weren’t too busy seducing the scatterlings of Africa that are the minions of her dominion. In our little village replete with its Victorian hangover, she is the closest to fucking in public that most kids will ever come.

There you have it. Total titillation. Lark licks the ears, winds up the heart, and takes you out of your skin. Into the dark.