Where the speaker(s) at? Part One

south african radio

There are moments when you only truly arrive somewhere when what you see from your window conspires with the sounds eeking from your transistor.

You know the drill – you’re driving down the motorway and then in a moment of madness you flick to Radio Shropshire, Donegall FM, or the Pulse of West Yorkshire. Accents and adverts suddenly connect you to the area and landscape that your comfy car has kept you insulated from.

This most excellent moment hit me like a piledriver crossing the Orange river – from Sith Ifrica to Namibia.

Two things conjoined to make crossing a tangible moment. The first is that – unlike most land borders, where one despondent cabbage field reaching to the horizon gives way to another – the orange river is a real physical, geographic change. It’s as though God had looked down and said “I’m not leaving this up to those stoopid poeple,” drawn the line across the ground, and said “let there be two different places”. The rocky Mediterranean scrub gives way to Jabba the Hut’s back yard. Luminous sand dunes and desert outcrop stretch from the curb to horizon.

We’d had our passports stamped in the border hut, and were crossing the bridge when, for no discernable reason the stereo which all through the veldt had been happily playing CD’s, decided no more hip hop, you Hafrica now boy.

From the static hiss emerged some weird juju Ndebele dude talking pops clicks and whistles to the sounds of jangly gee-tars recorded in a mud hut with a pair of 1960’s headphones.

Low fi from the beyond.

Awesome.