Dear Reader – Rivonia

Dear Reader (the nom-de-plume of South African songwriter Cherilyn MacNeil) has named third album Rivonia after the Johannesburg neighbourhood she grew up in. But the record has more ambitious lyrical themes than childhood, with the suburb having played a significant role in the country’s unhappy history of Apartheid: it was there, at a farm called Liliesleaf, that several ANC members were arrested, with the subsequent Rivonia trials leading directly to the imprisonment of numerous key figures (Nelson Mandela included).

It’s an ambitious subject to set down in song, but MacNeil finds effortless ways in, tackling politics with suspicion through (imagined) recollections and oblique poetry. The music to which these tales are set, meanwhile, is vivid and puissant, with 26.04.1994 (the date prior to the elections that took Mandela to the presidency) a silvery, soaring highlight and Man of the Book’s dancing, wheezing melodies affirmation of talents finally finding full voice. [Chris Buckle]