‘Surreal Sounds Music’ is a recording company from Polokwane, South Africa and as a label it seeks to find ‘Fresh House Sounds’ not only in South Africa but ‘Global Sounds’. The rule of thumb for ‘Surreal Sounds Music’ has always been ‘Music first, the rest later’.
Through perseverance and a belief in the type of house sounds they love, ‘Surreal Sounds Music’ have managed to introduce ‘Da Capo’ to the South African and International house music scene through their international affiliation with ‘Nick Holder of DNH Records in Canada’. ‘Da Capo’ is now arguably the pinnacle of South African House Production under the guidance of a man we admire and idolise ‘Black Coffee’.
‘Surreal Sounds Music’ still stands firmly behind unearthing new unheard artists and currently features the likes of Samurai Yasusa, Cornelius SA, Karyendasoul, Collen Cohen, Kunzima Theology. With this ‘Surreal Sounds Music’ are about to unleash a new project which is titled ‘Within Da Beats’. This project is a platform for every ‘new underground producer, musician, vocalist and anything in between’.
‘Within Da Beats’ was developed by ‘Surreal Sounds Music’ back in 2017 and the aim was to ‘discover and assist talented musicians who are struggling with releasing their music’. Most aspiring musicians experience unexpected challenges after making that great song, it can range from establishing their own music label to releasing and marketing that offering themselves or to attempts of finding a suitable label which would be willing to gamble on an unknown artist.
Both routes are difficult for the average individual in the sense that the ‘D.I.Y Route’ requires extensive knowledge of the recording label workflow and a decent marketing budget as well for that unknown artist. To actually make a profit after release is ‘extremely rare’ and is limited to either the extremely talented or extremely lucky. The other option is to try and find a label and the immediate problem there is that, most relevant labels are not willing to invest resources in someone who is ‘practically unknown’. It gets even worse if the artist only has a first musical project under their name, ‘most of the time music labels do not even listen to those sent demos’.
‘Surreal Sounds Music’ highlighted finding new talent to join their stable as one of their biggest challenge, as they are a label which is very particular as to the type of sound they represent. Therefore ‘Within Da Beats’ allows them to bridge that gap while also allowing them to try and reinvigorate the house music industry by introducing a stream of unknown but talented musicians.
The 2018 instalment of ‘Within DA Beats’ has been expanded from the four releases last year to a ‘massive fourteen releases’ for this year. March releases we can keep a lookout for include ‘DeepSouls – Reflection EP’, ‘Micheal Pieterse – Motherland EP’, ‘Guy Gibbons – Pyscho EP (Remixes By OU & SIZZ)’, ‘Clamentia – Champion EP (Remixes By Karyendasoul)’, ‘OU & Lungelo the Poet – If I Had To Kill You EP (Remixes By OU & SIZZ)’.
Word from ‘Surreal Sounds Music’ is that demos are welcomed at demo4surreal@gmail.com for their next instalment of ‘Within Da Beats’. If you feel that your sound has what it takes to be part of ‘Surreal Sounds Music’s Within Da Beats Project’, all you have to do is just to ‘hit em up’ with your ‘short biography and your demo’.