Andries on this music video: “When I need time to recover from life, the universe and everything, I retreat to Kalk Bay for a few days. My favourite place to check in used to be a ramshackle Victorian double story guesthouse, with views of False Bay. Then it got renovated (beautifully so) and for a while – due to popular demand – it was still made available to guests. Since lockdown, unfortunately, it has been a private residence. But I found a nice apartment to rent as a crash pad, spitting distance from the wonderful Café Olympia. There are two book shops in Kalk Bay: Zebra Books, where you can find first editions and where I found a beautiful book on the opera stages designed by David Hockney. They often have Wopko Jensma lino cuts and prints for sale. Then, down the road, is Kalk Bay Books. This shop stocks an excellent selection of contemporary reads and second hand books. I usually get Geoff Dyer’s latest books there, and their playlists keep me hanging around for much longer than I intended to. There’s also a piano in the book shop. My other favourite activity is walking in the harbour and sitting down at Kalky’s for fish and chips – you can’t have it more authentic than that. So, here’s a new music video about Kalk Bay as a place outside of time. Of course, it is also a typical South African story, with its loss and hurt and people who had to make way for others to settle. The song is called ‘Valsbaai se waarheid’ [False Bay’s truth] and comes from my album Trooskantates.”
Category: Video
Beware of the Dream – music video
A track from the album No place for time here (Dikeni Records, 2024). The track was originally released in Afrikaans in 2003. The video combines AI animation generated with prompts from the song’s lyrics, and extracts from books, letters, texts that are related to the theme of dreams and nightmares. A somewhat Gothic approach to the topic.
Unsere beiden Schatten – ‘n video-gedig
An Afrikaans-language poetry film, constructed around a photograph from 1942, with references to Leonard Cohen, Paul Celan and the song “Lili Marleen”.
World Wall III – foto’s van mure
About texture and shadows. A series of photographs of walls converted to video format – for moments of silence and contemplation.
Explorer of Nahoon – music video
A song about the suburbs, in this case the suburbs of East London in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province. From the albums No place for time here and Trooskantates (both released on 5 July 2024). The song contains a reference to “Man in the moon”, a 1980s South African hit song by the East London band Ballyhoo.
Lyric by Andries Bezuidenhout, music by Lukas van Garderen and Andries Bezuidenhout
Recorded and mixed by Andries Bezuidenhout
Mastered by Willem Möller
Highveld Utopias – music video
A track from the album No place for time here (released on 5 July 2024). A song about Johannesburg, South Africa, with historical and more contemporary footage of the city. The historian Jonathan Hyslop considered using this title for his book on the history of a Johannesburg trade unionist, eventually published under the title “The Notorious Syndicalist”. But “Highveld Utopias” is too good a title to let go. I initially used it with his permission for the Afrikaans version of the song that was released in the 2000s on the album “Bleek berus”.
Lyrics and music by Andries Bezuidenhout
Recorded and mixed by Andries Bezuidenhout
Mastered by Willem Möller
HIGHVELD UTOPIAS
The sun’s bleak face sniggers up high
Through the icy filters of the Highveld sky
The sphere folded into a chilly blue
With crystal membranes on the morning dew
Block and cement endure cold saturation
That gives every house here a frozen foundation
Caravan on bricks, the bare, bare branches
Of an iceberg garden’s forfeited chances
How long does it last, what would you say
Or did this dry season come to stay?
Cool at dusk, chilly at night
as Nigel and Balfour wait on the light
For marrow and vein and pipe to thaw
And the shivering in bodies to briefly withdraw
The reefs were traded for power plant blasts
But those scorching fires could never last
Headgear topple, mineshafts collapse
Under Main Reef Road the tunnels are traps
How long does it last, what would you say
Or did this dry season come to stay?
How long does it last, what would you say
Or did this dry season come to stay?
Perhaps clarity in crass, resolve in cold
When simple answers can no longer hold
The bleak resignation of the winter skies
Wraps your shoulders like expedient lies
How long does it last, what would you say
Or did this dry season come to stay?
How long does it last, what would you say
Or did this dry season come to stay?
© Andries Bezuidenhout
Roep van die Rooivlerkspreeu/Call of the Red-Winged Starling – nuwe musiekvideo
A new song from forthcoming albums, one Afrikaans, one English. The Afrikaans version is from an album titled Trooskantates and the English version from an album called No place for time here. Both will be released on 5 July 2024.
“Gevang deur tyd en plek” – drie nuwe musiekvideo’s
Drie nuwe musiekvideo’s van die album Dink aan planete. Elkeen op een of ander manier te doen met hoe ons tyd ervaar – hoe vinnig of hoe stadig dinge verander.
Dis net werk toe wat ek nog deur Hillbrow ry – musiekvideo
Musiekvideo vir “Dis net werk toe wat ek nog deur Hillbrow ry”, van die album Bleek berus (One-F Music, 2009).
Mombak se sin – music video
Music video for “Mombak se sin”, from the album “Bleek berus” (2009). The song speaks to a traditional Afrikaans lullaby. Trivia: The book on the table is “Kniediep” by Harry Kalmer. Kalmer got the book’s title from a poem by Wopko Jensma, which is also reproduced in the book.