31 MARCH. LES JAVAN with Rex van der Spuy
Les Javan on guitars
Rex van der Spuy on sitar
with Mzwandile Matiwana as special guest. Mr Matiwana is a poet

Who is Les?
Les Javan emerged as one of the Oppiestoep featured artists. He is one of the few musicians in Cape Town who is able to perform solo sets of original music, and has the ability, like Alex van Heerden, to bring out magic in a number of collaborators. Hence he appeared with the Khoi Khollektif in the first series, appeared with Rex and Matiwana on this performance, and played solo to bring the second series to a close.

Read more about Les here

What did we want to achieve?

For a long time Les has been looking to collaborate with a sitar player, and a week before this gig he finally found Rex. So we had the opportunity to explore in that direction.

There was also Matiwana, from PE but living now in Khayelitsha. He is a fine poet, one of the country's finest. He has a book out called I Lost a Poem, published by Deep South, and has completed the manuscript for his second.

Matiwana has been working with the Khoi Khollektif for some time, they recorded together in September of 2005. That was the first time that his poems were put to music.

This gig was the second time. Matiwana is working on recording an album of his poems, so this was in a sense pre-production for that. Les' gentle touch music is a perfect foil for Matiwana's often hard poetry.