birthday improvisation for alex, who would be 45 had he stayed around

The Calling

smallfunk is a music publishing and label created by keyboardist pär magnus johansson, together with alex van heerden, based in stockholm with a satellite somewhere around cape town.

the aim is to collect and present a music that can be described as spacious, techy, organic, understated, abstract even, but always very funky.

the bulk of the music is composed by the late great alex van heerden, respected trumpet/accordion player and singer in the jazz and ethnic music circuit of south africa. he did during his last few years melt these influences together with the sounds of european/scandinavian minimal electronic styles of techno and glitch, resulting in some truly original blends of rural/urban club music.

current projects are:

bushtech - minimal rural techno

nefertiti - insect jazz

tales of droëland - more wasteland beauty; AvH with paul miller and derek gripper

pinkfield$ - dark erotic and fragile; alex with kate ehrhardt

dandyesque - alex van heerden in the psychedelic dub-room

afrodisiac - music of secret plants

hemisfär (hemisphere) - electronic karoo poetry in afrikaans, with derek gripper, kate ehrhardt and magnus johansson