The collaboration between Warrick Sony, the South African sound experimentalist behind Kalahari Surfers, and British producer Greg Hunter represents one of the most striking sonic encounters in the MELT 2000 / Electric MELT story.
Warrick Sony began the Kalahari Surfers project in the early 1980s as a vehicle for musical and political experimentation under apartheid. His layered sampling, tape manipulation, and field recording techniques forged a uniquely South African form of sonic resistance — equal parts art, commentary, and innovation. By the late 1990s, Sony’s music had evolved into sophisticated, atmospheric compositions that blurred the lines between electronic, jazz, and indigenous textures.
Across the world, Greg Hunter was building his own reputation in London’s ambient and global fusion scene — collaborating with The Orb, Youth, and Juno Reactor, and later producing albums under Dubsahara and Electric MELT. Hunter’s meticulous sense of sound design and his openness to cross-cultural influence made him a natural partner for Sony’s experimental vision.
Their paths converged through Robert Trunz and the MELT 2000 network. The result was Turntablas, released on Electric MELT / MELT 2000 in 2009 — a deep, textural album that fused Sony’s sonic landscapes with Hunter’s ambient-dub production. The project moved effortlessly between field recordings, tabla and drum motifs, and manipulated samples — music that felt both grounded in Africa and cosmopolitan in scope.
Tracks such as “Gita,” “Kunene Jazz Drive,” and “Finely Powdered Rain” highlight the pair’s shared fascination with atmosphere and rhythm. Their partnership expanded the MELT 2000 palette into experimental electronica — still rooted in Africa’s energy but filtered through the studios of London and Cape Town.
In later years, Greg Hunter revisited the broader Kalahari Surfers and MELT 2000 catalogue through remixes, including “San Hunter (Greg Hunter Remix 2)” on Blaq Spirit Electric MELT 1996–2010 Vol. 4 (2023), keeping the collaboration alive for new listeners.
The union of Warrick Sony’s conceptual intensity and Greg Hunter’s studio precision perfectly captured the Electric MELT ethos — experimental, borderless, and forward-looking.