BOTW Review: John Wizards – John Wizards

John Wizards is a pretty good name for a person, but it’s an even better one for a band. Though it’s made up of South African producer/songwriter John Withers, Rwandan vocalist Emmanuel Nzaramba and a rotating cast of guest musicians, adopting a singular title for the group makes total sense when it’s one displaying quite this much personality.

On this remarkable debut, the Cape Town duo prowl around like discerning vultures of pop music, picking up on the finest morsels of what one previously could have assumed were dead or dying genres and spinning them into thrilling new shapes. Their starting points are everything from 70s afrobeat to 90s deep house, but the places they end up are entirely their own. Though it’s infectiously slick guitar licks that bind the thing together, John Wizards is as much of an electronic record as it is a guitar one (it’s being released on Planet Mu after all). Producer Wisgard has a majestic way of ushering sounds you might not expect to find on the dancefloor right down to boogie at its front and centre, exemplified best with every exhilarating twist and turn of riff-heavy opener ‘Tet Lek Schrempf’.

The duo also master a more melancholic ambience on the album’s luscious final third, with the contemplative ‘LEUK’ and ‘I’m Still A Serious Guy”s rays of sunshine proving that the more groove orientated likes of ‘Finally Jet Up’ and ‘iYongwe’ are as much the brilliant red herrings here as anything else. You won’t understand it, but that’s because it’s magic.

– Thomas Hannan