Various Artists - Moxyland Soundtrack (Presented by African Dope)

Editor rating: Eight

(125 reads) Moxyland is sexy. Moxyland is heavy. Moxyland is sexy and heavy and it’s a book. So why am I reviewing it as a CD? Because Moxyland is also a compilation of electric tunes released with the sci-fi (ish) novel by local literary laureate, Lauren Beukes. And the creative adaptation doesn’t stop there. The soundtrack and the book have a bespoke range of toys too! Waddy will agree - Ms Beukes has taken it to the next level.

Think Dust Brothers sparring with funky, raunchy rock, but home-grown. The tracks flow one into the next as fluidly as spiked spring water – meaning, they flow, but there’s more than one layer. Opening with a seminally sexy piece from the Tone Deaf Junkies right into Taxi Violence’s swelling Question X (nope; no answers there, I’m afraid), it’s alert and urgent. Getting darker with some heavy Electronica from Jacob Israel and Primaudiol (gotta love the spelling) and you’re at number six with Nine and the unholy honey tones of Mr Farrell Adams. I reckon this is where the seduction scene would start, if there was a movie to go with it. Mix ‘n Blend do Beautiful, and the insistent Kreature saucy and hairy, Damn Right! Mr Gelatine is itchy with glitches again, and electric snags. Then the wicked weight of track 8 from The Real Estate Agents triple disc devil Super Evil is impossible to sit still to. A Classic Krushed & Sorted anthem, King Of The Swingers (perhaps their best known?) takes the Mickey out of the monkeys with a bit of swing, and just when you started to believe sound is the new black, it finishes up with Losing Faith, and white noise prevails.

Compilations are audio narratives – stories for your ears. Go places with Moxyland. Dark, interesting, electric places. Oh! And there’s even a hidden track. But it doesn’t involve your ears…