05/03/2021
We Are Busy Bodies is excited to announce Abantu/Before Humans, the second full-length album by Johannesburg, South Africa's BLK JKS will be released on May 21st in North America by our label. It will be released globally by our friends Glitterbeat Records. A pre-order is now available on our Bandcamp and our website.
The first single, Running is out today on all streaming platforms, so be sure to listen, save it and share it!
For some background on the band:
The story of BLK JKS reads like a veritable rockânâroll legend. For a couple of years around the end of the 00âs, the enigmatic South African rock quartet was the darling of the underground scene. Apparently âdiscoveredâ by Diplo in SA, they went on to meet and befriend everyone from The Mars Volta to TV On The Radio, two bands they were often compared to. They jammed with The Roots, snapped pics Pharrell Williams and hung out with Lou Reed at the SXSW festival in Texas. They played double bills with Squarepusher at South Bank (UK) and Femi Kuti at the fabled Irving Plaza NYC. Recording an EP aptly named âMysteryâ by chance at Jimi Hendrixâs iconic Electric Lady Studios. This and a Fader Magazine cover feature in March 2008 then led to the band signing with indie label Secretly Canadian in 2009.
Their debut album âAfter Robotsâ went on to blow down the walls of rock'n'roll Jericho with its heady yet seamless mix of post-apocalyptic African funk rock, jazz, kwaito, folk, renegade dub, psych prog-rock, tv channel hopping, internet surfing, mbaqanga, soul and pretty much everything else in between. Confidently pushing one golden envelope through another the band began captivating a cult following for their music worldwide.
Foo Fighter Dave Grohl declared After Robots his favourite album of 2009. Thanks to a killer live collaboration with Alicia Keys at the 2010 Soccer World Cup Kick-Off Concert to an estimated television audience of two billion and their hit song âLakesideâ being synched on EA Sportsâ FIFA10 soundtrack, the reviews were glowing and global audiences growing â case in point, Rolling Stone Magazine championed the BLK JKS as âAfricaâs best new bandâ. But just as quickly as they arrived on the international scene, BLK JKS disappeared. The years of international touring had begun to take its toll. By 2011 the band were back in South Africa and continued to play the festival and nightclub circuit. But Johannesburg or Cape Town isnât New York or LA. A hiatus where each member pursued their individual creative muses was inevitable and necessary. Fans and critics alike doubted whether BLK JKS would ever record again.
Yet while they flew largely under the mainstream media radar, for the next five years the three remaining members continued to work together. After opening for Foo Fighters in 2014 at the request of Dave Grohl who inspired the band to forge on. More experimentation and collaboration would become key. They jammed and recorded with Malian guitar royalty Vieux Farka TourĂŠ and hip-hop revolutionary Money Mark. In January 2018 they recorded a bold, brassy, beautiful re-envisioning of trumpet legend Hugh Masekelaâs 70âs hit âThe Boys Donâ Itâ shortly after his passing, as a tribute to their late friend and mentor. The song featured Hughâs son, Selema of Alekesam on vocals and a certain Tebogo Seitei cutting a firebrand trumpet solo through the heart of the track.
BLK JKS couldnât help but to invite young trumpeting virtuoso Tebogo Seitei to complete the quartet. They then hit the rehearsal room running. Spending their winter weeks, and months of 2018 in the studio ⌠or rather the Soweto Theatre Orchestra Pit which they rebuilt into a studio and locked themselves into re-imagining a guitar-and-brass-driven, widescreen African Diasporic roots rock sound. They got it down. But the studio was burgled and the hard drives on which the songs were saved wound up stolen. Bummed out, bent out of shape by existential questions, they refused to be broken, so the band went back into the studio, a year later, recalibrated, and re-recorded the album in only three days!
Now, itâs the year 2021. We are here in the future, where BLK JKS finally re-enter the musical fray with their long-awaited new album âAbantu / Before Humansâ. They see it as a prequel to âAfter Robotsâ.
âAbantuâ is a surreal journey of an album, beaming with laser-like vision and power⌠that in parts possesses an almost hauntingly vulnerable beauty.
https://we-are-busy-bodies.myshopify.com/products/pre-order-blk-jks-abantu-before-humans
