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The Best of 2025

The end of the year is generally a difficult time to write sleevenotes for all sorts of reasons but in this case, travelling without a computer and too many other things to do. Last year was so busy that, having lined up all of our best songs of the year, there just wasn’t time to write sleevenotes and in the end we never got around to posting the best of 2024 mixtape. We don’t want that to happen this year, so the most important thing is to get the mixtape up so that those who are interested can listen to 30 of the songs which we think are worth taking note of. After all, the music is most important, especially for the musicians who have released music into an ever increasingly difficult terrain. So these sleevenotes focus on listening and perhaps dancing to the music, and don’t include detailed notes on each performer and song.

This mixtape doesn’t include an even cross-section of everything that was released in 2025, but it does especially promote a lot of music which isn’t being listened to much (if listening figures on Youtube, Spotify etc. are anything to go by). If something especially interests you, do some research and find out more about it. Furthermore, we will welcome your participation if you want to write a biography on one of the artists included here who is not already featured among the musicians covered in the encyclopedia on our webpage. You could also suggest updates and corrections on existing ones.

So … this year’s list includes some people who have been around since the last 1970s (Robin Auld, Tim Parr, Radio Rats) and 1980s (Bright Blue, Ian Inx Herman, The Genuines). It includes many songs released as singles but also songs taken from albums or eps not released as singles, there’s a song taken from a film soundtrack (Chris Letcher’s piece from Don’t Let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight), covers of both South African and international songs, and a 1980s recording of the Genuines at Jameson’s in Johannesburg, but released for the first time this year. And of course Tyla – one of South Africa’s most successful artists internationally, ever.

Please go to Bandcamp and look up artists you like and pay for album or song downloads, some even have CD and vinyl releases available. Look out for their live performances and book to go to see them. Support them if you like them! Check to see if they have a social media presence and follow them, contact them, find out how to get hold of their music if you can’t find it. Maybe but their merchandise if they have any – a T-shirt is always useful and fun!

Most of all, enjoy this mixtape!

  1. Vocabulary Of Grief From Requiem For The Impossible – Lucy Kruger
  2. How Chimpanzees Reassure Each Other – Ruby Gill
  3. Malachi’s Dream – Tim Parr
  4. Smoke In The Air – Ian Inx Herman & Vusi Mahlasela
  5. Let’s Talk About The Weather – Bright Blue
  6. Johnny Calls The Chemist – Robin Auld
  7. Heavy Weather – Radio Rats
  8. Devil Woman – The Sighs Of Monsters
  9. Karried Away – Karriers
  10. Villainous Wasteland – Zondo Commission
  11. Ska Daddy – Half Price
  12. Reaching – Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys
  13. Accidents – Kathryn Georgina
  14. Leaving The Farm – Chris Letcher
  15. Mar Vista – Ian Inx Herman, Crystal Monee Hall, Otis McDonald, Dave Schools,
  16. Sikiru Adepoju, & Gawain Mathews
  17. Vukani beNguni – Mthuthu
  18. Ancestral Home – Steve Dyer
  19. I Know This Place Part 2 – Guy Buttery, Derek Gripper & Jonno Sweetman
  20. Kea Morata – Abel Selaocoe & Manchester Collective, Fred Thomas, Alan
  21. Keary, Sidiki Dembélé & Dudu Kouate
  22. Incantations – Acid Magus
  23. Pretty Life – A Million Ways To Die
  24. Sweat And Blood – We Kill Cowboys
  25. Wilt – Filthy Hippies
  26. Bless The Idea – Crow Baby
  27. Whiskey Love – Hannah Ray
  28. If That’s Love – Mazula
  29. Grey – Laurie Levine
  30. Bliss – Tyla
  31. Sparkle – Alice Phoebe Lou
  32. Crazy Summer (Live) – The Genuines
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The Best South African Music – 2021 – Vol.1

At the beginning of each year we reflect on what we think were the best South African songs of the previous year. 2021 was a refreshingly good year for South African music, with a divergent array of new music released. Whereas we featured 20 songs from 2020, this time around we are highlighting 30 songs which we think everyone should listen to. These are presented over two volumes of fifteen songs each, so that the listening experience is less daunting, fitting more easily into our often busy schedules.

This first volume includes several veterans of the South African music scene. The Springbok Nude Girls sum up the return to a semi-normal life after severe lockdown with “Emerging Submarines”, one of the 2021 singles from their Partypocalypse album. Lesego Rampolokeng and the Kalahari Surfers are back with Babylon Mission Report, their first album since 1992’s End Beginnings. “Perverse Chrysalis” is a good example of Rampolokeng’s insightful poetry against the backdrop of the Kalahari Surfers’ deft accompaniment. Tim Parr first appeared on the South African music scene as guitarist for Baxtop back in 1979 and has featured in several bands since then, including Ella Mental in the 1980s and the Zap Dragons and Colourfields in the 1990s. He has also intermittently performed as a solo artist, most notably with the release of his Still Standing solo album released in 1996. This mixtape features “Time”, a single released this year. Hopefully it will be the first of many more songs from the legendary South African guitarist. Another guitarist with a solid reputation, with several solo albums to his credit, is Dan Patlansky who will be bringing out a new album, Hounds Loose, in 2022. Here we include his first single and title track from that album, released in late November. Steve Louw has been a feature of the South African music scene since the 1980s, with his bands All Night Radio and then Big Sky. In 2021 he released a solo album, Headlight Dreams, from which “Crazy River” is taken.

Lead vocalist for Freshlyground, Zolani Mohola (The One Who Sings), released a couple of singles as a solo artist in 2021. “Remember Who You Are” is the song we have opted for here. London-based Anna Wolf released her first solo album, The Dark Horse (under the name Tailor), in 2012. Over the past few years she has re-emerged with songs released under her own name. One such song is “Gong”, a single released early in 2021.

Montparnasse Musique is a collaboration between Algerian-French producer Nadjib Ben Bella and South African DJ Aero Manyelo. Their self-titled debut EP was released in 2021 and sure to get you jiving around your living room. On “Bitumba” they team up with Congolese band Mbongwana Star to great rhythmic effect. In mid-2021 Mushroom Hour Half Hour were back with the album, On Our Own Clock. This oft-changing ensemble featured artists from London, Dakar and Johannesburg. The Johannesburg musicians were Asher Gamedze (drums), Siya Makuzeni (trombone), Zoe Molelekwa (keyboards) and Tebogo Sedumede (bass). Recording began in June 2020 in the three cities and the digital collaboration resulted in this 2021 album, from which we have selected “Ngikhethile”.

It has been a while since fellow Shifty singer songwriters Chris Letcher and Matthew VD Want have released solo material but in 2020 they teamed up with Letcher’s singer-songwriter partner, Victoria Hume, bassist Andrew Joseph and drummer Nicholas Bjorkman. What began as a live show to showpiece new songs by Hume, Letcher and VD Want led to the formation of Koppies and the release of an EP of six new songs, two each by the aforementioned musicians. On this mixtape we feature one of VD Want’s compositions, “# Time’s up”.

There are also a few songs by relatively new musicians. Indie singer-songwriter Nic Jeffrey contributes “Say Love”, We Kill Cowboys perform “Take”, and The Great Yawn contribute “Take My Money”. It is exciting to see the recent emergence of indie label, Mongrel Records, especially as they are signing an enjoyable array of refreshing new artists: Here we feature the infectious “The Day I Gave My Sister Away” by The Amblers (duo Jason Hinch and Justin Swart) and “Feel It” by the Filthy Hippies, taken from the trio’s 2021 album Animal Farm.

We hope you discover some new music on this mixtape and follow a path of exploration into the music by the artists you like, and be sure to support them. The second volume appears in two weeks’ time, so listen to this one so long, put it on repeat and see you again next time with 15 more great 2021 releases …

  1. Bitumba – Montparnasse Musique & Mbongwana Star
  2. Ngikhethile – Mushroom Hour Half Hour
  3. Perverse Chrysalis – Lesego Rampolokeng & Kalahari Surfers
  4. Emerging Submarines – Springbok Nude Girls
  5. The Day I Gave My Sister Away – The Amblers
  6. Hounds Loose – Dan Patlansky
  7. # Time’s Up – Koppies
  8. Feel It – Filthy Hippies
  9. Say Love – Nic Jeffrey
  10. Take – We Kill Cowboys
  11. Time – Tim Parr
  12. Remember Who You Are – Zolani Mohola
  13. Crazy River – Steve Louw
  14. Take My Money – The Great Yawn
  15. Gong – Anna Wolf