ALTERnatives
Telling the South African Alternative music story via documentaries on bands at the top of their Genres.




BATTERY 9

Battery 9 is the brainchild of Paul Riekert, with live collaborators contributing over the decades, including Huyser Burger (vocals, angle grinding, percussion, live artwork), At Nel (percussion), Arnaud Van Vliet, Andre Van Rensburg and Cesare Cassarino (on guitars).

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Battery 9 is an industrial project from the troubled soil of Johannesburg, South Africa, Paul Riekert, writing, performing and recording the music.

He started recording under the name Battery 9 in 1994, bored with the creative constraints of a standard rock band format. A platform to run various projects from, One F Music, was subsequently founded, in the form of an independent record label and a small home studio.

The first Battery 9 album, "Protskrog", was released in 1995. Made and backed by little more than a shoestring budget, it sold well enough to warrant a licensing deal with independent record company Tic Tic Bang.





The next release, "Strop" (1996) saw Battery 9 break through to a wider audience, with the song "Kiss The Machine" receiving daytime airplay and eventually charting on 5FM, a major nationwide commercial radio station. For the first time, the major industry took notice and the project received major media coverage, while the live act played for increasingly bigger audiences, culminating in a solo show at the Viper Room in Pretoria in 1997 that drew 1200 people. In the same year, the album "Gris", featuring re-mixes, re-interpretations and interactive CD-Rom-data was released.

In 1998, the album "Wrok" saw the light, which was awarded Best Rock Album in that year's South African Music Awards.

After a few major live performances, like supporting The Prodigy and Faithless on their tour in South Africa, Battery 9 took a break for a couple of months to re-charge batteries, and re-assemble the live act.

Battery 9 re-appeared with the “Straks” album released in December 2005. A much heavier album and also regarded as probably their best release so far. The band appeared two years in a row headlining the Ramfest rock festival in Cape Town. Later in 2007 the band played a series of three shows in September, among them being the Cape Town legendary “Goth Industrial Gathering” and “Empyrean Fest”. The band played at The Bohemian in Johannesburg with new industrial act, Nul.

Another stellar album, "Galbraak", was released in 2008.

After the sad passing of Battery 9 collaborator Huyser Burger, the band went into hiatus, but reappeared with "Grimmig" in 2016 / 17.







Interviews are already underway for the Battery 9 ALTERnatives documentary, with band members, key players and people who were there and survived to tell the tale.
If you feel you have something to add, from being interviewed on camera or supplying photographs, video, news articles and more, contact us.

Any sponsors and financial backers keen to get involved in this piece of entertainment history, don't hesitate to contact us.

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Flamedrop Productions