Durban has undoubtedly cemented itself as South Africa’s biggest exporter of Dance music. Presenting acts such as Zakes Bantwini,  Black Coffee, Babes Wodumo, the list goes on and on. The city has never struggled to produce A-list dance music contributors. With the emergence of Gqom, young South African producers such as Dj Lag, Distruction Boyz and more, have managed to branch out beyond the confines of the South African music industry.

With a deeply-rooted culture of Dance music, it isn’t by accident that the East Coast city remains consistent at producing producers in the genre. One of the newest talents to emerge is KwaMashu K-side duo MusiColours. The group comprises of two producers, Nkanyezi Mahlobo who performs under the mononym SO’LD as well as DJ and producer Innocent Nkandi who performs as RAD. The two acts started producing in 2008 and 2006 respectively. They would collaborate on production and form a group called MusiColours. They have recently decided to drop their debut album titled Mutual Minds just after a year of forming the group.

The Kaleidoscope-esque debut effort from the Durban group opens up with the piano and guitar filled Chilla Soul a calm and moody intro which borrows it’s texture from the fabrics of deep house. It provides a smooth welcoming tone, creating a vivid image of Saturday afternoon drinking high end cognac.

The tempo starts to pick up on the spacey and pacey Rituals, the feel becomes a bit more hypnotic and curates a mood that’s a lot less subtle. On the second track, the debut is already sounding like a mosaic of various sounds. This makes it a bit more difficult to box the effort under any particular genre. Throughout the project they embrace an experimental approach.

Songs like Don’t Trust Me sound as if they would work perfectly in an ’80’s movie that has a twist of the future. Opening up a sense of adventure, the intergalactic throwback sounding song gives off a nostalgic undertone, one that’s hard to ignore. It feels like an endless trip en-route to an unknown destination.

As the project grows and grows, it begins to lose it’s silky Jazzy aesthetic and leans towards a more robust and organised mess which is Gqom. It is with merit, being the boys are from Durban and that simply means they are roaming on native territory.

The project is very dynamic and every element that was experimented with sounds just about right, nothing feels too forced. Though the project can feel over saturated at times with many songs being a bit too long. The outro Daughter is unnecessarily long clocking in a near eight minutes. The last three songs alone are all over six minutes and can feel like an overkill.

Overall the first part of Mutual Minds is the best part of the project, the chic sounds that were later traded for Gqom is a forte that the group should focus on more. The production is solid and neat, it goes without saying, since everyone that was involved in the project has been at it for a long time.

Stream Mutual Minds below.