Heaven knows, there’s nothing intrinsically accessible about glitchy beats except, perhaps, that they remind us of playing video games as children.But thanks to Fischerspooner, thanks to Royksopp and The Postal service, people realised that electronica could be a great vehicle for lyricism. At the same time, everyone who hadn’t considered themselves trance bunnies or house heads realised, somewhere after 2000, that they wouldn’t mind a bit of dancefloor action of their own. Electro: its meaning still changes depending who you ask. But whatever it is, Vredefest Elektro has it. Improving on the misguided inclusion of The Cavalier, Straatligkinders, Taxi Violence and Winterstasie in the recent South African Indie Volume 1, this selection gets a better handle on the nebulous spirit of its genre, albeit with a major electro-meets-rock bias. More importantly, it’s heaps more fun.Purists should be chuffed with tracks from Playdoe (Spoek Mathambo’s other big-in-Europe project), Haezer and Gazelle. Haezer has been rampant across live stages in South Africa, winning crowds with his hard-as-nails sets and MK-band remixes, and "Sirens In The Night" makes a great case for seeing him do so as soon you can. Gazelle, who tends to lose a bit of magic in the translation from live-in-the-flash fashionasta to recording artist, surprises with the playful "Verlore Seun".Yesterday’s Pupil, who made Speakerbox’s album of 2008, chimes in with "Mechanisms of the Universe", which is fantastic when accompanied with its gorgeous music video, but otherwise stays a little bit flat to stand out on this collection. Elsewhere, Lark continue their streak of broody but brilliant tracks with "Moonlight", and Flash Republic go all mainstream on our ass with the radio-friendly (and good times-friendly) party anthem "Twister". Jax Panik, who was practically made to lift the mood in electro playlists, is both perky and punchy in "Talking To Myself". In the end, compilations like these confront you with the fact that genre labels just don’t work anymore (less so in a neat, commercially viable package). Hoewever, in the wacky, sugared-up world of electro, we’re free to embrace or ignore these absurdities as we wish and have tons of fun anyway.
Watch Yesterday's Pupil video