Pantsula! The Rise Of Electronic Dance Music In South Africa 1988-1990 vinyl

Through the work of Awesome Tapes From Africa and others, we now know more than ever about South Africa's electronic music scene in the 1980s. Here, Rush Hour attempts to fill in the gaps in our education via a fine, double-album exploration of South African dance music produced at the tail end of the decade. It's an interesting and hugely enjoyable set full of tracks that fuse elements of local styles such as bubblegum (that's SA synth-pop, effectively) with sounds and grooves more often found in contemporaneous house music from New York, Chicago and Italy. It's a blueprint that resulted in music that was variously deep, dreamy, bubbly, warm, synth-heavy and loved-up, but never less than clearly African in origin. Pantsula, then, is a superb history lesson packed full of positive, sun-ripe gems.

Dj SoFa, Your Name (Legalize Lambada), Deano Sounds, Thomas Wood, Kalita Records