Own Affairs, released in 1984, marks the striking full-length debut of the Kalahari Surfers on Shifty imprint Gross National Products (GNP 333). Kalahari Surfers is the recording alias of South African musician and sound experimentalist Warrick Sony. Emerging during the last decade of apartheid, the album stands as both a sonic outlier and a cultural provocation. Blending post-punk, dub, tape-collage, and avant-garde electronica, Sony crafted a sound world that felt simultaneously DIY and deeply considered. Field recordings, satirical spoken-word fragments, and manipulated radio broadcasts punctuate the album, creating a sense of fractured reality that mirrors the sociopolitical tensions of the time.
Musically, Own Affairs balances jagged guitar lines, elastic bass grooves, and spacious dub rhythms with layers of found sound that challenge conventional song structures. While the influences of UK post-punk and experimental outfits can be heard, the album is undeniably rooted in South Africa’s own contradictions and cultural multilayers. Sony’s approach gave voice to a kind of sonic resistance—subversive not through direct slogans, but through the way it reassembled everyday noise, state propaganda, and countercultural energy into something that felt both critical and strangely playful.
Upon its release, the album struggled to find official acceptance, frequently running up against censorship barriers, yet it circulated widely within underground music networks. Today, Own Affairs is regarded as a pioneering statement in South African alternative music. This bold, genre-defying work captured the dissonance of its era while pushing the boundaries of what a post-punk album could be.
GET YOURSELF A VINYL COPY OF THE LIMITED REISSUE OF OWN AFFAIRS AUTOGRAPHED BY WARRICK SONY!
Visit https://www.permanentrecord.co.za/
Finally reissued on vinyl: the first full-length album from Kalahari Surfers, completed in the summer of 1984. This groundbreaking South African release is a pioneering post-punk record of anti-apartheid rock that EMI initially rejected for being “political, pornographic and anti-religious.” Still banned in South Africa, it remains a powerful statement of resistance. This exact reissue replicates the original LP, including the A3 folded insert.
Each copy is personally signed by Warrick Sony, the founder and sole permanent member of Kalahari Surfers, making this a true collector’s item.
