Music and the elements which encompass music are perfectly and wonderfully made forms of life. Whether you’re a music lover or not, the components which make up music are wrapped around and laced into the components which make up your very existence. When you listen to a song for the first time the tempo, beat and rhythm pulsate and absorb into the cells of your skin, they etch their name into your bones and attach themselves to the capillaries and vessels in your arms. After listening to that certain song for the first time, it molds into the fibers of your memory and inhabits it. Certain places, certain times and certain memories are married to certain songs, and thus these songs and beats resurrect memories which we had crucified a long time ago.
Nestled between the endless array of coffee shops selling exotic tea and backpacker hotels housing exotic people, on Long Street Cape Town, sits the monumental Pan African Market (PAM). When walking along the curves of Long Street you hear the PAM long before you see it ; at the entrance of the PAM, like colossal warriors guarding a king, sit two resonating speakers launching underground swing music into the Cape Town air. Much like moths to a pulsating orb we were drawn to this grandiose mansion housing a cluster of immortal music, ancient African artifacts and the best Ethiopian food.
The Pan African Market is a powerhouse of music and expression, a meeting place for artists and musicians and creators. We were sitting on the outside deck of the PAM, over-looking Long Street in all its grand beauty, with an assortment of Ethiopian food and beers in front us of when we saw Darryn for the 3rd or 4th time that day. It seemed as though fate or some higher power drew us together. Darryn is one of the amazing musicians we stumbled upon during our Cape Town adventure, we were looking for new music and he was looking for new people to play his music for, thus we achieved mutually assured musical bliss. We searched the endless halls and passages of the Pan African Market for a quite paradisaical space where we could sit and listen to Darryn play. We found a passage in the PAM devoid of city noise and human discord, and much like disciples around a prophet we sat and listened intoxicated by his beautiful, yet raw voice and soft guitar playing.
We followed Darryn all over the city, after the acoustic session at the Pan African Market, we ventured to a place selling the most shockingly delicious jam pizzas and an underground skate park turned psychedelic rock joint, which resembled something from a Sex Pistols music video circa 1975. Places like the PAM and the psychedelic rock joint are where memories are birthed into existence. The act of listening to The Andrews Sisters or Louis Armstrong sends an endless album of snapshots of the PAM through my mind and across the back of my eyelids. Music is everywhere, even in our subconscious. Play me “You Only Live Once Remix by Blinx” and my body and mind flashback to the day I was in the back of my friends car, the sun was dancing on my skin and the cigarette smoke was all around me, I remember the way my friends faces looked when they sang along to this song, as if nothing could be better than this, I remember them closing their eyes during the chorus and singing as though their bodies couldn’t handle the music being bottled up inside of them, I remember seeing goosebumps all along our arms, as if our bodies were reaching and stretching out trying to touch the very element which made us feel this way. Music has this ability.
Saying music is a big part of our lives is an understatement. Music is everything. Music and art are just as essential as water, air and food: Perhaps more essential. Music is inside of our bodies ricocheting against our bones and music is inside of our minds attaching itself to memories and emotions.
Music Is Everywhere
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Words & Images
Cassandra Pohorille
