Release Radar: Afronaut “Birdhouse”
Pic by Nick Boulton
Afronaut’s first single, “Birdhouse”, announces the arrival of one of 2020’s most thrilling new bands.
Available on all streaming platforms on Friday November 27th, “Birdhouse” captures the singular sound created by the three-piece of Fumane Mahane (vocals), Thulasizwe Nkosi (guitar) and Zakhele Mangwanyane (violin) – leaders of So Punk, the Soweto punk movement that’s as much about music as it is about skateboarding and surviving in the hood, two decades into the 21st century.
Jangling guitar-pop meets tropical rockabilly in an autobiographical song about Afronaut’s formation in 2019 that’s also a rallying cry for a year in which people across the world have felt like they have been losing their collective minds.
Everybody’s going crazy
Everybody’s going cuckoo
The whole world’s going crazy
The whole world’s going crazy
"Birdhouse was written totally spontaneously,” says Thulas. “We were just chilling at the park and it just came out.”
Adds Fumes, “Thulas had the guitar melody and rhythm for a while, and we’d been thinking about where to take the song. I just started quacking, as if I was crazy, and just flowed with what he was playing - and the song was done.”
Plainspoken but vital lyrics about the saving grace of music when times get crazy propel “Birdhouse” forward, firmly in step with the liberating energy of the music - shakers, revivalist whoops, country claps, blues crunches and all.
"Birdhouse” is the first single off Afronaut’s much-anticipated debut EP, Africans From Outta Space, due for release on December 11th 2020. Produced by Barry Berk at the Bass Station, Johannesburg, the six-track record is set to put Afronaut on the global music map, at a time when the unruly energy of punk is back driving artistic creation around the world – creation that is unbound by strict rules of genre or place.
"Birdhouse” is released by The Good Times Co, Northpark Publishing and distributed via Paradise Distribution.