Karma

http://entertainment.iafrica.com/music/latest/432295.htm - iafrica.com

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Worth Buying Archives


January 1999
1 Karma – One Day Soon
With this bold set of hooky and evocative songs from her new post-Henry Ate band, Karma Swanepoel takes her place among the leading female singer-songwriters of the late '90s. Karma Good!
2 Mercury Rev – Deserter's Songs
They spent three years preparing to lead the oncoming acoustic rock revival and here is their awesome manifesto. This American band's third and best album is a dense and dreamy patchwork of rock's finest traditions as well as a signpost to the rock music of the "Noughties" (What are we going to call the new decade?)
3 Jorge Carlos – Trip Of Africa
The soundtrack to the Cape Town "Summer of Love '98/'99. Bushmen, trance, whales, rock guitar, lions and Dye@Koke. Great cover and perfect title!
4 Air – Moon Safari
It's been around awhile, but its French charm and cool pop still sounds completely fresh and spacey. One to last for quite a while.
5 Gomez – Bring It On
This "Tom Waits meets Dire Straits" roots rock album was recorded in a garage in South London but draws heavily on a variety of American folk-rock influences. Difficult to describe, just buy it!




- Amuzine

http://www.mweb.co.za/hubs/entertainment/music/interview.aspx?articleid=31954 - mweb.co.za

<a href="http://www.liveweston.com/index.php?view=News%2FDetails&id=375&type=Review">LIVE WESTON REVIEW</a><br><br>Karma<br>Posted at: Dec 24, 2006 <br><br>By Todd McFlicker<br><br><br>The indie rock outfit has managed to fascinate listeners from both the stage, as well as in the studio. Captivating audiences' hearts and minds, singer/songwriter and guitarist, Karma-Ann Swanepoel hails from South Africa. For a little over three years now, the like-minded maiden has been pursuing a dream of performing for large audiences in the States and beyond. Sharing a bill with G Love, the Gin Blossoms, Drive Blind and CandleBox, the crew has blown away spectators in L.A.'s Viper Room, Eddies Attic in Atlanta, BB Kings in the Big Apple, and Seattle's Alki Beach Festival. Karma has also sold out respected venues in both London and South Africa. <br><br>In 2005, Karma put together their premier CD, Don't Walk Fly, working in Miami with Scott Canto. The Grammy award winning engineer and producer has backed universal stars, ranging from Shakira and Jon Secada to Ricky Martin and Nine Inch Nails. Meanwhile, Karma in 2005, Miami, has taken over the South African charts producing three chart topping singles to date. The album has reached the South African charts three different times already to date. Don't Walk Fly has sold more than 10,000 copies via their website, as it has been reviewed in more than fifty different publications around the world. Not only does Karma have a substantial mailing list of fans from around the globe, but the unsigned band has also been featured on over two hundred podcasts internationally. South Floridians, take advantage of a local show before it is too late. Any day now, Karma will reach their well-deserved global fame and ramble on out of our immediate reach. - LIVE WESTON

http://www.mweb.co.za/hubs/entertainment/music/interview.aspx?articleid=31954 - mweb.co.za

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/2004-10-07/music/music3.html

Another World
South African pop star Karma-Ann Swanepoel starts over in South Florida
BY JULIENNE GAGE
feedback@miaminewtimes.com









In her native South Africa, 29-year-old folk-rock singer Karma-Ann Swanepoel was a smashing success. At the age of 21, she soared to the top of her country's charts with her band Henry Ate, winning numerous awards, giving concerts to crowds of 45,000, and touring with other South African pop stars like Johnny Clegg. But when she moved to Fort Lauderdale in search of international success with her newly-formed group Karma, she went back to square one.
Last week at Miami's Luna Star Café, Swanepoel sang her heart out to 21 people -- including herself, her back-up guitarist, and the bartenders. Perched atop a barstool, the pixie-like blonde swung her spindly legs and flopped her Converse-shod feet like a shy kid. But when she sang, she blossomed into a mature rock diva, delicately balancing the vulnerable lyrics of a romantic troubadour with her hard-driving guitar playing.

"I like to think music that offers the audience emotional direction is making a comeback," said Swanepoel, who moved to Fort Lauderdale in late 2003.

Much of the music she was reviving that night came from Henry Ate, who she says sounded like the Cranberries but took more creative risks. She explained to the audience that these songs were not the result of her coming of age in her early twenties, but rather in preparation for it.

"I used to write songs about situations I could imagine being in, but sometimes when the day arrived, I wasn't too happy about it," she said before launching into "Honestly Honest," a song about a painful breakup. The experience still smarted. She fixed her gaze on the back wall of the café as she struggled to steady her sweet, clear voice.

After the performance, Swanepoel, who began playing guitar at the age of six, explains that it is her emotional vulnerability that first captured the hearts of her "relentlessly honest and passionate" South African compatriots back in 1996, when she and Henry Ate released their debut album, Slap in the Face. At the time, she was a timid but headstrong artist with an incessant need to express her own ideas. She was in her second year of philosophy studies when music producers discovered her performing in a coffeehouse.

While she was in Europe celebrating her college graduation, her first album became an overnight success, and she returned home to be bombarded with autograph requests. Soon afterward, her face was plastered across magazine covers nationwide and she was winning numerous honors, including 1998 Pop Album of the Year at the South African Music Awards for her solo debut as Karma, One Day Soon.

"In my little world, that was huge," says Swanepoel. Nonetheless, sometime around last year, she realized she needed larger markets to grow as an artist. So she relocated to South Florida, joining several South African friends who had moved here. "I thought, öYou can sit here and live this good life, but you can't get bigger because South Africa has a very low glass ceiling,'" she says.

Swanepoel says that being signed with EMI South Africa hasn't helped much, since record companies tend to work independently of each other in each country. Last year, she left the conglomerate to form her own label, Ate Music Productions (AMP), and released Seven Songs independently. Although her South Florida audience is much smaller than the one she left, she appreciates that a handful of locals have come to relate to her music. "Being here is a wonderful lesson in making me aware of the passion that I actually have for singing," she says.

Meanwhile, Swanepoel has formed a backing band that continues her quest for "open-ended musical experimentation." She stole compatriot Cristiaan Wood, 25, from South Africa's John Philip Band because she couldn't find a local guitarist who fit her style. He moved over here this summer. Then she picked up Zambian-American bass player Stephen Calderalo, 21, and Cuban-American drummer Daniel de la Fe, 31, both native to Miami. Together, they are testing out a mix of African-influenced folk rock and Latin and Caribbean rhythms.

"We're all extremes, but that makes it exciting," says Swanepoel.

Wood agrees, adding, "We come from a country which is the coming-together point of so many cultures, so you have to learn to like people for what they are."

For Swanepoel and Wood, members of a generation of South Africans who witnessed the abolishment of apartheid, embracing cultural diversity is now second nature. Although Swanepoel sings of poverty and injustice, gives money to children's charities, and runs a non-profit "development school" through AMP that gives free music industry training to six singer-songwriters a year, she's from an era that is more focused on building personal relationships - Miami New Times

http://www.jhblive.com/kulcha/interviews/2005/karma/default.htm - www.jhblive.com

http://www.jhblive.com/kulcha/interviews/2005/karma/default.htm - www.jhblive.com