Piet Botha and Jack Hammer will be recording a new album, “Highway 13“, in March and April 2008. There is a specific thread that runs through the whole album, as suggested by the title track. Most of the new songs will be heard live when Piet Botha and his longtime associate Johnathan Martin tour the Cape on a hectic ten days, 9 gigs excursion in mid February. Piet said: “We want to really play the new material into shape before April, as we would like to actually launch in Mozambique at the Strab Festival, end of May”.

The new album has been a while coming. “After ‘Pilgrim‘ it was time to let the sound and style of the band regenerate by itself and sometimes this takes a bit of time because it’s not a tangible thing that you can manipulate”, Botha tried to explain, “hopefully we have achieved that by going against the mainstream, as per usual, but the deeper you go the more soul you will find.”

Some of the new titles are “Rearview mirror”, “Highway 13”, “This song is old now”, “Stay at the wheel”, “Mr Midnite”, “Jozi Town” and “The Devil’s House”. Old favourites will be available in their extended repertoire for the Cape Tour.

— Brian Currin