Digital Inability

Cape Town ambient jazz trio Benguela have struck back at the city’s otherwise quiet and complacent music scene by putting out "Digital Inability".

Their second album, released late last year, follows where their debut — 1998’s "Sputnik" — left off.

With their new disc you can sample a collection of more than two years of live gigs captured by the forward-thinking threesome at venues around the Mother City.

Now signed to a record label Rythym Records shared by renegade Afrikaans poet and writer Breyten Breytenbach, Benguela are not looking back.

The group’s drummer and unofficial co-ordinator, Ross Campbell (of Fetish fame) informed iafrica.com that the 13-track ambient mood-scape has already been sent to places like Chicago, Norway and Germany while it continues to sell well at home.

These northern escapes are alive with the off-beat sounds of “post-rock”, a hybrid of jazz, electronica and rock and give one some idea of what musical wavelength the band are on.

The disc can be likened to the soundtrack to an African night sky journey and falls under a colleague of influences ranging from Miles Davis to Aphex Twin.

The sounds of café and bar patrons meander in and out of the background, while the band, which along with Campbell consist of double bass-player and cynic Brydon Bolton and the quirky guitarist Alex Bozas, innovate off of one another.

From “Bushmatic’s” yelp of a wounded buck to “Xnic’s” pangs of a defiant machine, the album winds its way through an assortment of audio postcards.

Seated behind his Macintosh computer in his Woodstock flat, Campbell smiles as he narrates how the cut “One more and we’ve got them” got its name.

He explains how the then owner of the Observatory Bar “Diamond’s and Pearls”, where the track was being recorded, hurried up to the band as their set was winding down. Behind him the audience were beginning to stir.Then staring greedily at the band he jeered “one more and we’ve got them!”.

Later patrons were mystified to hear how the owner, saddled with debts which included money he owed to countless bands, took off and never showed his face there again.

Each time Benguela brace the stage in lure of plunging the audience into a world of mantra-meditation and subliminal drugs, one can expect a totally unique experience.

See them live in Cape Town on February 7 at District 206 or at the Bassline in Johannesburg on the 21st. They will also be passing through Durban on the 23rd, playing at the NSA Gallery. Or visit visit www.benguela.co.za for more info