Composed, arranged and performed by Neo Muyanga, this audio cd supplement was part of the Chimurenga Chronicle (October 2011) , a speculative newspaper which is issue 16 of Chimurenga.
Tracklist:
a) 1+1= (a re-composition of a 5000-year-old offering to Lord Ganesha, the Hindu deity, an opener of sorts)
b) 4:7 (heaven’s on the ocean is a proportional refrain on reaching nirvana, the 7th grade, via the mundane material world)
c) 3sin= rθ (sino projection technology theme)
d) 3(x)n (illegal border crossing and migration theme. composed for dancers)
e) e=mcx \rightarrow \infty (a true story about an explosive riot day with SADF soldiers who attacked Soweto on June 16th, 1985. Composed for those who got hurt)
f) ƒ:X→Y (horizon heart aflame. Composed for a lover)
g) (a summing of random themes theme)
h) 4x+2 (the 2 or 4 step theme)
i) y~ 6/8 (a travelling theme in 6 parts over eight. Composed for puppets)
j) y\ge \!\, 6/8 (a running theme in 6 parts over 8 )
k) 1/4° (a kota bread theme. Composed for skolies and thieves)
l) (a perpetual circle. Composed for an apartheid-era multi-racial soccer club)
Set in 2019, Volume 1 opens with the discovery of the mutilated body of a middle-aged white woman in the basement of Shalom Court, an abandoned block of flats in Yeoville, Johannesburg. What follows is both the struggle to identify the victim and the hunt for the killer. En route, various characters – neighbours, cops, property owners, municipal officials, as well as past and present residents of the building – co-operate or clash in terms of their own agendas and concerns.
“Utilizing brutal realism and satire, with touches of the fantastical, The Chronicles of Shalom Court delves into contemporary South Africa by cutting across cultures and classes. Its fictional universe is populated by every stratum of society fleshed out in a blend of social encodings, tonal registers and individual eccentricities. Examining competing notions of sanity, the extremes of violence and gender relations, political and bureaucratic corruption, racist phobias and everyday struggles for survival, this is truly a work of the neo-colony.” – Andries Walter Oliphant
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