“Isigubhu awakens me, and all the people who are alive in me… There are specific rhythms for entities in this world, as well as other entities in other worlds. Time plays a role in that”
Durban’s Desire Marea is talking about an African drum pattern that closely resembles the heartbeat, the same depth-charge we move to as humans. It’s a BPM he has stepped to since 2010, as one half of post-kwaito act FAKA. For Marea, it is the walk of the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful and the evil. A wander beyond the binaries.
Last summer, Marea released Desire on Mute, his first-ever solo album and his opening stride away from the gqom-sonics of FAKA. Like the philosophies of isigubhu, Desire is a journey through the body, a rich and stretchy symphony decorated with drones, phonic wormholes and vibrating anatomy. Whether he’s singing about jumping your bones, handing you his broken heart or his inner psyche, the album sends you into sacred and mystic revelry. “I wanna touch the God in you
