Desire Marea - Desire (LP) - White Vinyl

Desire is the sort of debut that arrives fully formed, like someone stepping into a room and changing the air without raising their voice. Released in January 2020, then reissued by Mute in 2021, it introduced Desire Marea, one half of the South African art collective and musical duo FAKA, as a solo artist with a singular vision. The record folds club music, ritual, grief and pleasure into something that feels intimate and fierce at once. It is also a great reminder that modern electronic music can be devotional without softening its edges.

If you know FAKA’s work with gqom and performance art, you’ll recognise the pulse here, but Desire moves in broader arcs. Beats kick and shuffle, then drop away to clear space for voice, for breath, for choral lift. Desire Marea sings in English and isiZulu, sometimes confiding, sometimes incanting. You Think I’m Horny is the obvious entry point. It starts like a slow confession, almost spoken, then swells into a kind of procession. The rhythm doesn’t push as much as it haunts. When the backing vocals rise behind him, it sounds less like a club build and more like a ceremony, the sort you might stumble into at 3am when you thought you were just going out for a drink.

Tavern Kween lands closer to the floor. It has that Durban swagger, a nod to nights where the lights are harsh and the conversation is rich. The hook is simple, almost chantlike, which makes it perfect for the room. But the track never settles for straight hedonism. There’s a bittersweet tint to the melody, a reminder of the tenderness that runs through the whole album. Desire Marea has spoken in interviews about healing practices and spirituality, and you can hear that pull toward reckoning. Even when the synths scrape or the bass gets heavy, there’s a hand on the shoulder in these songs.

What makes Desire stick is the sense of scale. It is never afraid of quiet. There are stretches where the arrangement thins to keys, a drum figure, a breath, and then a line that cuts straight through. Then, just as quickly, the music will flare into choirs and drum patterns that feel close to the bone. It is not a genre exercise. You get shades of gqom, industrial textures, ambient drift, and gospel colour, but the blend is seamless. It feels lived in. It also feels South African to the core, even as it speaks fluently to listeners anywhere.

The Mute reissue helped the album find more ears, and it is the version you will see turning up in shops now. On vinyl, Desire really blooms. The low end has weight without swallowing the room, and those choral layers sit a touch wider, like you are standing in the space with them. If you are crate digging at a Melbourne record store and spot Desire Marea vinyl, do not leave it behind. It sits well on a system that loves detail, but it is forgiving too. Put it on while you cook, or at the tail of a long night, and the record will meet you where you are.

There is a lot to admire beyond the sonics. The writing taps into queer nightlife, rural memory, and the ache of movement between them. The storytelling is local but it travels. That tension, between the ecstatic and the reflective, gives the album its spine. It is why people still talk about it years on, and why it set up such a confident path for what came next. Desire Marea albums on vinyl make sense because these songs like air and time. They breathe differently off a screen.

If you collect across genres, Desire is the sort of record that bridges shelves. It can sit next to club 12-inches and art pop without apologising. It can also sit next to spiritual jazz and not feel out of place. For anyone hunting Desire vinyl, the Mute pressing is the straightforward path, and it is easy to buy Desire Marea records online through the usual indie outlets. In Australia, plenty of shops that specialise in left-field electronic stock it, and a quick search under vinyl records Australia will turn up local options so you do not need to pay silly postage.

Debuts rarely feel this assured. Desire carries history, faith, and a nightlife glint, yet it never turns heavy-handed. It is generous to the listener. It trusts you to join the circle, then it makes that circle big enough to keep you there.