GoldFish’s sophomore album Perceptions of Pacha was a career-defining moment for creative duo Dominic Peters and David Poole. It marked a major shift in their sound, from jazz lounges to the dance floors of Ibiza, and remains a timeless snapshot of their budding partnership, 15 years ago.
“Any good album should act as a time capsule,” Poole tells me over a Zoom call. “I can’t believe it has been 15 years,” adds Peters, continuing, “We hadn’t really discovered the world of dance in 2008, so we ended up breaking a lot of the rules, and I think we’ve tried to keep that spontaneity in everything we’ve written since then.”
The record went on to achieve overwhelming critical acclaim, winning the SAMA for Best Engineer and Best Dance Album. Tracks “Fort Knox” and “Hold Tight” remain firm fan favourites, alongside “This Is How It Goes” or “Soundtracks and Comebacks” – now staple highlights of their exceptional live show.
So many South Africans will recall these songs with fondness. They’re embedded within our memories of that summer in 2008, amongst friends and loved ones.
Traces of electronic music had already been lurking on their debut offering Caught In The Loop – influenced by the likes of Faithless and Basement Jacks – but it was a chance encounter with the owner of one of Ibiza’s most renowned and oldest nightclubs back in 2007 that launched GoldFish into the heavy world of dance. And that nightclub happened to be called Pacha.
“We were given a 20-minute slot to play and it was just a disaster. We couldn’t find a RCA cable to hook our mixers up to the club’s sound system, it was a scorcher of a day and time was running out.” says Peters. “Long story short, we ended up going back at 4:30am the next morning, and we obviously did something right because the owner invited us to be a part of their permanent residency program and of course we said yes.”
From playing tiny dive bars in Cape Town to being at the epicentre of Ibiza’s dance scene, GoldFish had stepped things up, and Perceptions of Pacha was, as the name suggests, a stunning reflection of that ever-influential phase of their career.
The record lives on as the duo’s love letter to Ibiza, a place that shaped and continues to shape them. Watched over by Tanit, the Carthaginian goddess of dance and fertility, it’s an island steeped in mysticism, and that same energy found its way into Perceptions of Pacha.
Seamless arrangements and euphoric vocals give way to a brilliantly varied dance record, charged by faces and places. GoldFish could never have predicted just how important this record would become, and that’s what made it so special. Like an amber fossil, its beauty only intensifies as time goes by, preserving the innocence of two musicians at the start of their prolific careers.
