There was an admission implicit in the title of the South African trio Beatenberg’s 2022 EP On the way to Beatenberg: The group had yet to arrive at a sound. Over 19 minutes, they experimented with baroque guitar and Auto-Tune; they flirted with EDM uplift and Balearic haze. But Beatenberg’s core remained indie pop, refracted through guitarist and lead singer Matthew Field’s lifelong love of maskandi and mbaqanga. Their serene rumbas can make the group’s music feel out of time, not just in America (where a dusty mental shelf might hold them alongside Dirty Projectors, Paul Simon, and Vampire Weekend) but also at home, where amapiano and its many varieties are the hot pop export. When Beatenberg dabble in dance, it’s generally to add Zulu folk flavor to someone else’s production. A decade ago, they collaborated with fellow countryman DJ Clock on the tropical-house smash “Pluto (I Remember You).” In 2021, Beatenburg popped up on RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE—the continent-spanning collaboration between producers Scorpion Kings and Tresor—to get pensive on the Afropiano song “Dust in the Wind.”
“Dust in the Wind” appears, in reworked form and now titled “Worth More,” on The Great Fire of Beatenberg. Field’s guitars are pushed to the fore; the bass follows the chord changes instead of dictating them. It’s less a capeside DJ set than an afternoon party in a walled garden. The details are exquisitely rendered; the conversation is intimate but ends abruptly; outside noise wafts in but never threatens the proceedings. The result is a distinctly South African sophistipop, a guitar-centric companion piece to Nostalgia, the 2019 bubblegum-revival album from Tresor, the Congolese-born producer—and erstwhile Drake collaborator—who’s also an old friend of Field’s. (“Aphrodite,” Beatenberg’s Nostalgia contribution, is a typically cool affair, all electric piano slink and lilting devotion.)
At the moment, the way to Beatenberg cuts through Field, whose playing is more central than ever. On the restless “Chorus of May,” he’s skipping between staves, chasing wholeness with blithe resignation. His diagonal solo powers down like a dying robot. On “Eau de Toilette,” he effortlessly interlocks with Beatenberg’s rhythm section—first bassist Ross Dorkin, then drummer Robin Brink—like a bike chain jumping between sprockets. “You sweat the right kind of sweat/Mixed with your eau de toilette/Impossible to forget,” he pants before unfurling a solo that sounds like a baying dog. Field’s timbral exercises prove infectious: The peacocking “Wheelbarrow” sways and bumps like its titular vehicle, as the band deploys percussive clangs and trapdoor echo. If Beatenberg doesn’t match the exuberance of prime mbaqanga here, they at least nail its strut.
Like any good hosts, Beatenberg are at their liveliest around their friends. “Wheelbarrow,” “Eau De Toilette,” and “Worth More” are all Tresor co-writes, and the opening “Branches on a Tree” gets a Balearic backdrop from the versatile house producer Sun-El Musician, who submerges Dorkin’s bass until the modest uplift of the chorus. It’s a lovely slice of yearning dance pop, even if the text (“Dancing in a hurricane/’Til we break free”) gets a bit Real World at times. But that’s the drawback to Beatenberg’s brand of pop: If you’re not careful, the ebullient picking and deft rhythms can turn idle musings into sentimentality.
If there truly is a great fire here, it’s held in deep reserve. “The deeper I dig, the less that I find,” Field sings on the despairing waltz “Gold Mine.” On “Night Bus,” he’s overcaffeinated and underfed, perpetually deciding whether to leave town. A light application of Auto-Tune lends an Afrobeats feel to his sighs. The album closes with the paddling melancholia of “Green Bird,” which depicts depression as a monkish pursuit: Field’s acoustic guitar peals like a belltower; his wordless tenor gazes reverently skyward; Brink seems to be tapping a tabla. “Try again tomorrow,” Field advises a would-be visitor, “try again today,” holding the last syllable like a dangling promise. Having cleared their pandemic-era song queue with the On the way EP, Beatenberg enter their second era as a guitar-pop act that’s somehow both warm and hermetic, offering a tender goodbye before the garden gate closes.
