In a year that saw South African music continue its success globally, we witnessed a whole new generation flex their talents back home across all genres.
Picking only ten releases to make up our Indie EP and albums list was no easy feat, but these were the ones that we couldn’t get enough of, the ones whose melodies imprinted themselves onto our memories and we urge you to make your way through them all during the holidays if you haven’t already.
Trillion Petals – Hill After Pale Hill
Making her debut with the five-track EP Hill After Pale Hill, HONEYMOAN’s trademark sound is lurking, but with renewed and slightly more edgy energy, tempered by analogue experimentation and soaring indie-rock anthems.
Omaqoga delivered two stand out EPs this year which made it difficult to chose between the two, but London Drop 2 just edged out its successor. With it’s playful touches of Afro tech and electronica that underpin reverberating gqom melodies, Omaqoga are redefining a staple dance genre with a fiercely collaborative, fiercely independent spirit.
Through sparse arrangements and a gentle lyrical nature, Majola crafts an intimate soundscape of remembered spaces on his debut EP, Isitifiketi. Fields, kitchens, gardens—places where love and its absence seem to coexist. His falsettos ache with sympathy, offering an acoustic vulnerability that spans the realms of memory, faith, love and loss, and he draws on these themes for
At their core, the Lerato Orchestral Collective (L.O.C.) is rooted in love, a philosophy that radiates throughout their debut album, Lerato La Rona. The band’s debut touches on psychedelic rock, jazz, maskandi and punk. Their willingness to experiment puts L.O.C. in a class of their own among their peers.
Hunter as a Horse – ANATHEMA
Hunter as a House (Mia van Wyk and Paul Gala) have created a broody and enigmatic project with ANATHEMA that captivates with its boldness and depth, mixing sharp, evocative writing with experimentation across genres and tone.
MOONGA K. is innately skilled in creating a world unique to each release and on, OUTLAW, he explores queer love and community against the stereotypically masculine genre of country music, creating a layered listening experience that’s best enjoyed on repeat.
After a name change and slight rebrand, Sossi remerged with her self-titled EP, Sossi, created alongside producer Peach van Pletzen. This is a neon bright, pulsatingly energetic Afrikaans electro-pop EP that packs a short punch, but cracks open a genre saturated by South African men.
Continuity is something Archi is proving he’s good at. The leap from 2024’s These Thoughts to Throwing Stones is striking. While bolder in sound and scope, Archi’s latest still builds on the emotional groundwork he’s laid, continuing a narrative in captivating new directions.
The diversity of influence on this album is clear. The Tazer’s psych-rock roots remain strong while a heavy garage-rock foundation is built on searing guitar work, paying homage to the genre’s roots while pushing boundaries at the same time.
Crow Baby – Get Yourself Together
Crow Baby don’t just adopt the riot girl tradition, they pick its insides out. The result is a compellingly left of centre art-pop record that answers the question, “what if Hole made a Björk album?“. At times exquisitely grotesque, at others irrelevantly vaudevillian, Get Yourself Together grounds itself in a femininity that exudes as much power as it does quirk.
