On the playlist: Chiano Sky, Dance You're On Fire, Sterling EQ

Dance You're On Fire moves to a new beat, Sterling Q sex instrumental music

CHIANO SKY: HUNGRY

Chiano Sky Kruger's jazzy-pop debut album has put her on the airwaves across the country.

The songs are powerful and gut-wrenchingly honest. She reveals a strength and vulnerability that is at once arresting and inspiring. The tracks Sick, Walking Away and Home Sweet Home have already enjoyed heavy rotation on national radio stations. Most of them speak of unrequited love. - Zinhle Nhlanhla

DANCE YOU'RE ON FIRE: LIGHT REPEATING

Five years, six number one singles and one MK Award later, Johannesburg rock-indie band Dance You're On Fire is nowhere near losing its popular appeal.

Their latest offering Light Repeating is an affirmation of why people dig them so much. The new album, hot off the heels of skinny-jeaned self-important Secret Chiefs, sees the band challenging a little more and being less concerned about radio-friendliness, even though it’s laced with the predictability we’ve come to expect from Dance You’re On Fire.

The lyrics are a bit darker and the sounds a bit more diverse, and even though they’re still not cutting edge, the album is enjoyable from start to finish.

The title track presents the promise of a much harder rock album, but then it takes you on a bit of a carousel trip of singer Tom Manners’ emotional playground – both lyrically and musically, with the exception of the lyrically challenged ‘dance’ tracks Floor to the Ceiling and the happy-sounding Home and

These become bearable breaks between the well-crafted core of the album, with deep drums engulfing tantalising guitar, delicately wrapped by alluring vocals.

Notable tracks are the title track, Carry You, Outside, Work it Out and Motions.

The band even delves into a vigorous guitar-laden frenzy with Chasing the Sea – something I would love to hear more of.

It draws you in and leaves you wondering what they’re going to do next. Dance You’re On Fire has certainly grown up since their first album, and I can’t wait to see where they go from here.. - Nikita Ramkissoon

STERLING EQ: PULSE

Known for changing the face of instrumental music in South Africa with their fusion of fresh beats and an undeniable sex factor, the four-piece group Sterling EQ returns with a new album, Pulse, releasing this week.

Consisting of flautist and ex-marathon swimmer Carina Bruwer, the Taiwanese Eriel Huang, ex-model Renate Riedemann on electric violins, and actress-musician Ariella Caira on electric cello, the four women who make up this contemporary instrumental band have mixed well-known tracks, like Mission Impossible, with five original compositions written specifically for them.

Far from the laidback, background style of most instrumental music, this album is full of contagious Latin club rhythms, like in the track Carnaval. The sheer virtuosity of Asturias and the epic sounds of O Fortuna, or the relentless pace of the title track, set new standards for the instrumental genre.