BLOG 05/03/2024
Feature — South African tour diary, week one
The first instalment of Jan Kinčl’s own diary from his four-week December 2023 tour of South Africa, written by Jan and published by Mixmag Adria in March 2024. The tour, arranged with Johannesburg DJ and producer Gary Hattenberger, grew out of contacts made after Jan’s releases on Deep Inspiration Show Records; this first part covers the opening week, from landing in Johannesburg to a run of gigs across three provinces and neighbouring Lesotho.
What the piece covers
Written as dated, timestamped diary entries, the week takes in the Plastic Affair party in Polokwane, the rain-soaked Houz It Friday in Segwaelane where the crowd danced until ten in the morning, the annual Vinyl Escapade party in Maseru, Lesotho, a streaming session for Obel Media Group, and Vinyl Thursdays in Soweto. Along the way Jan notes the local habit of playing records slowed to -6 to -8 percent, repeated good-humoured encounters with the police, and meetings with DJs he had previously only known online — each entry closing with a “record of the night”.
In his words
“Numerous local DJs impressed me — their feel for the room, timing, selection, mixing and sheer command of the vocabulary of house music are exceptional, and superior to most of their European colleagues.”
“It is hard to describe how deeply they experience the music and how attentively they follow the DJ’s every move. I don’t think I will get this performance out of my head for a long time.”
(translated from Croatian)
Read the full piece
The complete first week, entry by entry, is on Mixmag Adria.
Jan Kinčl — Južnoafrička turneja (prvi tjedan) → mixmagadria.com