In his latest album, Rondry, Fliek en die Buitelewe, Valiant Swart explores life’s myriad points of view through some songs that pander to conventional American blues-rock ideas and others that revel in Afrikaans lyrical playfulness and local musical craft.
Kicking things off are the trite but nonetheless enjoyable country-blues strains of “Rock ‘n Roll Engel”, an unrequited-love song about a tattooed, festival loving and ultimately stereotypical muse rock stars and their devotees have fawned over since the genre’s dawn.
Joining the list of platitudes is “Ek En Die Blues” with its predictably moody landscape and veneration of that always-there-for-you sound. However it’s when Swart shuns the conventional and expected that the album comes to life.
Following the warm-up that is the opening track comes “Lied Van Die Langpad” whose infectious joviality is matched only by its charming video and whose lyrics are disarmingly slick, the way the lines “hoor jy daai lied van die langpad / die klankbaan van nagte wat span / om die son en die maan en die sterre wat verskiet en vergaan” roll through the air might be the album’s most pleasing moment.
Similarly “Swerwersvuur” turns tender and alliterative phrase to paint a picture of isolation around an unknown, lone wanderer whose endless gaze contemplates the world in the fire-light.
The pandering songs, the ones that stick to the tried-and-true, are enjoyable enough but it’s the songs that are more discerning in lyric and melody that give Rondry, Fliek en die Buitelewe its substance.
Feature pic supplied by artist
