Electrotrash.co.za started in mid-2005, when RickDisco and dirtyoldman decided to do something about the lack of coverage of South African electronic music.

There was plenty happening. Producers were making great music, DJs were playing interesting parties, and a growing scene was finding its feet. But there wasn’t really one place to keep track of it all.

We wanted to change that.

Starting in Pretoria and Johannesburg, Electrotrash grew into a place to discover local artists, download their music, find out about upcoming parties and read about what was happening in the scene. Over time, contributors and friends from around the country helped us cover more music, more artists and more events.

We weren’t trying to build a business or become the authority on anything. We just loved the music and wanted more people to hear it.

The archive

Electrotrash was active from 2005 until 2013. A lot has changed since then, both in South African electronic music and on the internet.

Many of the artists we featured have gone on to do great things. Others have moved on to different projects or disappeared from view. The parties, clubs and small labels that helped shape the scene have changed too.

Unfortunately, much of the music from that time has also become difficult to find. File-hosting services have closed, download links have died, and entire websites have disappeared.

In 2026, we decided to dust off the old site and give it a more permanent home.

We’ve moved Electrotrash from its ageing WordPress installation to a simple static website, preserving the original articles, artist profiles, reviews, images and downloads wherever possible.

This isn’t a relaunch of Electrotrash as an active music blog. It’s an attempt to preserve a little bit of South African electronic music history.

The original content remains largely as it was published. Some links won’t work, some opinions may have aged badly, and there’s probably the odd questionable haircut lurking in the photographs. That’s all part of the history.

Help us keep it alive

The archive is still a work in progress.

Some of the music we originally shared was hosted on third-party websites and has since disappeared. We’ve recovered what we can, but there are still missing tracks, mixes and images.

If you come across a broken link, missing file or something that doesn’t work, please let us know.

And if you happen to have copies of music that has gone missing, or know where we might find it, we’d love to hear from you. Old hard drives, forgotten CD-Rs and dusty music collections might hold the missing pieces.

We’d like to make as much of it available as possible, with the permission of the people who created it.

Thanks

Electrotrash was only ever possible because of the artists who shared their music, the promoters who invited us along, the writers who contributed their time, and everyone who visited, commented, downloaded something or told a friend.

Thanks for being part of it.

Take it easy,

dirtyoldman, RickDisco and the rest of the Electrotrash crew.

^5!