In Philipstown, the race announces itself before the starting flag does.
Wire chatters against wire.
Pressure Cooker did not simply write music about Philipstown. It tried to make Philipstown audible.
Wheels bounce over rough ground.
Handmade cars rattle through the dust while their young builders run behind them, pushing machines fashioned from materials most people would have thrown away.
When Pressure Cooker Studios was asked to create the music for The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix, the Cape Town team could have treated those sounds as background noise.
Instead, they listened.
That decision became the foundation of one of the documentary’s most distinctive creative choices:
A soundtrack built, quite literally, from the world it was trying to portray.
As Philipstown prepares for the return of its annual Grand Prix on Saturday, 12 September, the documentary inspired by the race arrives with extraordinary recognition behind it.
A Webby Award.
A Tribeca X Social Impact Award.
A dominant run at South Africa’s Bookmark Awards.
But beyond the trophies, its score offers another reason to look closely at what happened in this small Northern Cape town.
Pressure Cooker did not simply write music about Philipstown.
It tried to make Philipstown audible.
First, They Listened to the Cars
Pressure Cooker founder and music director James Matthes says the process began with the sounds of the race itself.
The studio listened to the rhythms produced as the handmade cars moved.
Wire.
Metal.
Rattles.
Impacts.
Uneven resonances.
These were not sounds to be cleaned away before the “real” music arrived.
They became clues.
“When Giant Films and Accenture Song approached us to score the documentary, we started by listening to the unique sounds and rhythms these cars make as they race,” Matthes wrote in a recent account of the process.
That decision fundamentally changed what a Philipstown soundtrack could mean.
The team did not have to search a sample library for something that sounded vaguely handmade.
The race had already supplied the vocabulary.
Building Music the Way Philipstown Builds Cars
The Grand Prix centres on a deceptively simple tradition.
Children construct draadkarre — wire cars — from discarded wire, cans and other materials before pushing them around a gruelling three-kilometre route through Philipstown.
The official project says the tradition now stretches back more than 14 years.
And the cars are considerably more sophisticated than the word “toy” might suggest.
Steering.
Suspension.
Individual body designs.
A surprising amount of engineering built from whatever is available.
Pressure Cooker approached the score with much the same logic.
According to material supplied to Viranova, the studio constructed eight bespoke instruments using wire, scrap metal and found objects.
One drew on the principle of a traditional San musical bow, recreated using tins and wire.
Another stretched wire across a large sheet of metal and was played with a bow.
Matthes has publicly described the instruments as deliberately raw.
The studio could have reached for cleaner sounds.
Instead, the buzzes, strange resonances and unpredictable behaviour were part of the point.
“They’re imperfect and unpredictable, just like the cars, and just like us,” Matthes says.
That imperfection gave the score something a pristine virtual instrument could not easily reproduce.
A physical relationship with what was happening on screen.
The Film Needed to Sound Like Nowhere Else
Director Paul Ward’s brief to Pressure Cooker was both simple and difficult.
The music had to create a sonic universe that felt unique to Philipstown.
Not generically African.
Not generically cinematic.
Philipstown.
Ward has explained that the music team entered the production relatively early, before the documentary had a conventional finished edit.
That created an unusual workflow: some of the score needed to exist while the film itself was still discovering its final shape.
It also meant the music could become part of the documentary’s architecture rather than simply something placed underneath completed pictures.
That becomes especially important once the film leaves the literal streets of the race and enters the children’s imaginations.
Scoring What the Children See
There are two races happening in The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix.
The first is physical.
Children run through Philipstown behind cars made from wire and discarded scrap.
Then there is the race as they imagine it.
In their minds, they are drivers.
The documentary makes that internal world visible.
The production digitally mapped Philipstown and used information captured from the real race to recreate the competition through stylised CGI.
The handmade cars become larger-than-life racing machines.
Formula 1 commentator Alex Jacques calls the action with the seriousness and excitement of professional motorsport.
Suddenly, something that physically consists of wire, hands, footsteps and dusty streets has the scale of elite racing cinema.
That creates a difficult musical problem.
How do you score both versions without allowing one to overwhelm the other?
The Score Had to Live in Two Worlds
Pressure Cooker describes its wider approach as a “future cinematic sound” — bringing African musicality into contemporary cinematic scoring in ways that feel both rooted and forward-looking.
Philipstown gave that philosophy an unusually literal foundation.
The score needed enough scale to accompany the race as the children imagined it.
But if the music became too polished, too heroic or too conventionally cinematic, it risked floating away from the physical world that made the story meaningful in the first place.
The handmade instruments created the bridge.
The future-facing CGI could grow enormous.
The sound beneath it could still contain wire.
Metal.
Buzz.
Scrape.
The materials of the actual cars.
In that sense, the score did not have to choose between the Karoo and cinematic spectacle.
It could carry the Karoo into the spectacle.
Then the Music Needed a Human Engine
The instruments established a sonic world.
Matthes still felt something was missing.
Humanity.
“The score needed a human engine,” he says.
That element came through Muneyi.
The singer-songwriter was born in Tshilapfene, a small village outside Thohoyandou in Limpopo, and has built much of his work around Tshivenda language, memory, community and storytelling.
Matthes says that when Muneyi spoke about Philipstown, the connection felt immediate.
“We had other options, but when he spoke about Philipstown, it was like he was speaking about home,” Matthes wrote.
“That comes through in his lyrics and performances.”
Muneyi’s voice appears across several pieces from the score.
The official soundtrack credits him on “Muloro”, “Thi Nga Litshedzi”, “Vuthel’Umlilo” and “Duvha Lo Ni Penyela”.
That does something important to the film.
The homemade instruments give Philipstown texture.
Muneyi gives that texture breath.
YoungstaCPT Expands the Map Again
Cape Town rapper YoungstaCPT also enters the soundtrack on “Catch Up”.
The track is one of 15 pieces on the official motion picture soundtrack, released through Pressure Cooker Music in October 2025.
The collaboration expands the soundtrack’s geography without displacing Philipstown from its centre.
A Karoo race.
A Tshivenda singer-songwriter whose own story begins in rural Limpopo.
A Cape Town rapper.
A Cape Town scoring studio.
Different parts of South Africa meeting around one small town.
That is very different from using “South African” as an undifferentiated musical category.
The voices and influences arrive from somewhere.
Philipstown remains somewhere too.
Specificity survives the collaboration.
The Soundtrack Mirrors the Film’s Larger Idea
That is perhaps why the score feels so conceptually aligned with the documentary.
The children of Philipstown already understand transformation.
A discarded can is not only rubbish.
Wire is not only wire.
Scrap metal is not necessarily finished with its useful life.
Put those things into somebody else’s hands and they can become a car.
Pressure Cooker applied almost exactly the same logic to sound.
A rattle becomes rhythm.
A buzz becomes texture.
Scrap becomes an instrument.
Imperfection becomes character.
The music follows the same creative principle as the race:
Take what is available.
Look at it differently.
Build something that was not there before.
A Local Race That Travelled
The documentary has since travelled considerably further than Philipstown.
Directed by Paul Ward and produced by Giant Films, the 75-minute film is now available on Prime Video.
In 2026, it won the Webby Award for Best Documentary Storytelling.
Then came Tribeca.
Tribeca X awarded The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix its Social Impact Award, placing the project inside an international branded-storytelling programme whose other 2026 winners included work from global companies including McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Autodesk and Beats.
Closer to home, the project dominated the 2026 Bookmark Awards.
The Philipstown WireCar Foundation was named Digital Brand of the Year.
The Grand Prix became the evening’s most decorated idea.
It won the Pixel for Purpose.
And in the craft categories, the project received a Silver Pixel for Use of Sound.
That last recognition feels particularly appropriate.
Sound is not incidental to what this film is doing.
The Awards Confirmed What the Score Was Trying to Do
Pressure Cooker’s work had already attracted craft recognition earlier in 2026.
At the IDIDTHAT Craft Awards, the studio and Matthes received a Craft Mention for music supervision and original music.
Judge Fran Luckin praised the music for feeling native to the place the documentary came from, while Jono Hall highlighted the score’s ability to rise and recede without overwhelming the people or story on screen.
That is almost exactly the problem the soundtrack needed to solve.
The film contains technology.
CGI.
GPS data.
A digital twin.
Professional motorsport commentary.
International ambition.
It could easily have become fascinated by the machinery used to elevate the race.
Instead, the music keeps pointing backwards.
To the town.
To material.
To people.
To wire.
Philipstown Was Already Interesting
For all the international recognition surrounding the documentary, the Grand Prix itself remains grounded in Philipstown.
That distinction matters.
The race predates the film by years.
The official WireCar project traces the tradition back more than 14 years, while the Philipstown WireCar Foundation now uses the attention around it to support broader training, education and community development initiatives.
Philipstown did not become culturally interesting because an international audience eventually saw it.
The film works because there was already a culture, tradition and imaginative world worth seeing.
Pressure Cooker’s strongest creative choice may therefore have been its simplest one.
It listened before it composed.
The Town Was the Instrument
There is an understandable temptation when scoring a story like this to make the music tell the audience how important everything is.
Big strings.
Big emotion.
Big cinematic statements.
Philipstown already had another option.
Wire.
Metal.
Feet.
Wheels.
Voices.
Irregular sounds that belonged nowhere else in quite the same combination.
Pressure Cooker treated those supposed imperfections as evidence.
By building instruments rather than sanding away the roughness, the studio created music that could only have emerged from this particular story.
“As soon as you hear this score, you know it’s The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix,” Matthes says.
That may be the clearest measure of whether the experiment worked.
The music does not simply tell you what to feel about Philipstown.
It sounds like it remembers where it came from.
On 12 September, the handmade cars are set to return to the town’s streets.
And after a year in which Philipstown travelled through Prime Video, the Webbys, Tribeca and South Africa’s biggest digital awards, perhaps the most fitting soundtrack remains the one that existed before any of them arrived:
Wire on road.
Wheels over stone.
Feet through dust.
And children pushing imagined machines towards the finish line.
Reporting basis: Based primarily on material supplied to Viranova about Pressure Cooker Studios’ work on The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix, including James Matthes’ comments on the score, the construction of eight bespoke instruments, Muneyi’s contribution and the 12 September 2026 race date. The soundtrack process was independently cross-checked against a first-person account by Matthes, Pressure Cooker Studios’ official material and published film credits. Documentary, streaming and awards claims were verified against Prime Video, The Webby Awards, Tribeca, IAB South Africa and the Philipstown WireCar project’s official website.
Story index Key points, people & topics
Key points & topics
- Pressure Cooker Studios built instruments from wire, scrap metal and found materials to score the award-winning documentary, creating a soundtrack that does not merely accompany Philipstown — it carries the physical sound of...
- Pressure Cooker Studios did not merely score The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix. It built instruments from wire, scrap and found materials so that Philipstown’s own rattles, resonances and imperfections could become part of...
- In Philipstown, the race announces itself before the starting flag does.
Frequently asked Answers from the desk
What is the Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix?
It is an annual three-kilometre race in Philipstown in the Northern Cape where children build and race handmade wire cars constructed from scrap materials.
What is a draadkar?
Draadkar is Afrikaans for wire car. Philipstown’s racers build their cars from wire, cans and other discarded materials, with some designs incorporating steering and suspension.
What is The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix documentary?
It is a 75-minute documentary directed by Paul Ward about the children, community and imagination surrounding Philipstown’s annual wire-car race.
Who made the music for The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix?
Cape Town-based Pressure Cooker Studios composed the documentary’s original music.
How did Pressure Cooker create the soundtrack?
The studio began by listening to the sounds made by the wire cars and then built bespoke instruments using wire, scrap metal and found materials.
How many handmade instruments did Pressure Cooker build?
Material supplied to Viranova says the team constructed eight bespoke instruments for the project.
Who is James Matthes?
James Matthes is the founder and music director of Pressure Cooker Studios and led the musical approach to The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix.
Who sings on the Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix soundtrack?
Muneyi provides vocals on several tracks, while YoungstaCPT features on Catch Up.
Who is Muneyi?
Muneyi is a South African singer-songwriter and composer born in Tshilapfene, a village outside Thohoyandou in Limpopo.
How many songs are on the soundtrack?
The official motion picture soundtrack contains 15 tracks.
Credibility & transparency How this story is reported
- Content type
- News
- Verification
- Official source
- Reporting basis
- Based primarily on material supplied to Viranova about Pressure Cooker Studios’ work on The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix, including James Matthes’ comments on the score, the construction of eight bespoke instruments, Muneyi’s contribution and the 12 September 2026 race date. The soundtrack process was independently cross-checked against a first-person account by Matthes, Pressure Cooker Studios’ official material and published film credits. Documentary, streaming and awards claims were verified against Prime Video, The Webby Awards, Tribeca, IAB South Africa and the Philipstown WireCar project’s official website.
- Sources & context
- The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix is a 75-minute documentary directed by Paul Ward and produced by Giant Films around the Northern Cape town’s annual three-kilometre wire-car race. The official project describes the tradition as more than 14 years old and confirms that competitors build surprisingly sophisticated cars from discarded wire and other scrap materials. Behind the film, Philipstown was digitally mapped and actual race data was used to reconstruct the competition in CGI, with Formula 1 commentator Alex Jacques calling the imagined race. Pressure Cooker composed the film’s original music under music director James Matthes, with Elben Schutte and Cobus Schutte credited as lead composers and Muneyi on vocals. The resulting 15-track soundtrack was released on 31 October 2025 and includes four Muneyi collaborations plus “Catch Up” featuring YoungstaCPT. The documentary’s recognition is substantial and independently verifiable. It won the 2026 Webby Award for Best Documentary Storytelling and the Tribeca X Social Impact Award. At the 2026 Bookmark Awards, the Philipstown WireCar Foundation was named Digital Brand of the Year, the wider Grand Prix work was the evening’s most decorated idea, and its sound received a Silver Pixel for Use of Sound.
- Image
- Photo: Official poster · Supplied by Plot Twist
- Primary source
- musebyclios.com
Edited under our Editorial Standards and How We Report process. Spotted an error? Open the correction form below, or email corrections@viranova.co.za.
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Filed by Viranova Entertainment Desk for the Music desk · Philipstown, Northern Cape, South Africa. Published 25 Aug 2026.
Sources
Primary material
Viranova obtained, attended or witnessed this directly.
- Pressure Cooker Studios built eight bespoke instruments from wire, scrap metal and found materials to create the score for The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix Pressure Cooker Studios / press material supplied to Viranova accessed 25 August 2026
- One of the bespoke instruments drew on a traditional San musical bow and was reconstructed using tins and wire, while another used wire stretched across a large metal sheet and played with a bow Pressure Cooker Studios / press material supplied to Viranova accessed 25 August 2026
- James Matthes describes the handmade instruments as deliberately imperfect and unpredictable, reflecting the character of the wire cars themselves Pressure Cooker Studios / press material supplied to Viranova accessed 25 August 2026
- Pressure Cooker Studios describes its scoring approach as future cinematic sound that brings African musicality into contemporary cinematic composition Pressure Cooker Studios / press material supplied to Viranova accessed 25 August 2026
- Muneyi was selected to provide the human vocal element of the score after his own rural upbringing created an immediate connection with the Philipstown story Pressure Cooker Studios / press material supplied to Viranova accessed 25 August 2026
- The 2026 Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix is scheduled for Saturday 12 September 2026 Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix / press material supplied to Viranova accessed 25 August 2026
Secondary material
Reported first by another publication or organisation, and credited here.
- James Matthes says Pressure Cooker began scoring the film by listening to the sounds and rhythms produced by the wire cars before constructing instruments from similar materials Muse by Clios accessed 25 August 2026
- The score used bespoke instruments including a traditional San musical bow recreated from tin cans and wire and wire stretched across a large metal sheet Muse by Clios accessed 25 August 2026
- Muneyi provided the vocal element of the score and comes from Tshilapfene outside Thohoyandou Muse by Clios / Muneyi accessed 25 August 2026
- Muneyi was born in Tshilapfene, a small village outside Thohoyandou in Limpopo Muneyi accessed 25 August 2026
- The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix soundtrack contains 15 tracks and was released on 31 October 2025 through Pressure Cooker Music Apple Music accessed 25 August 2026
- Catch Up features YoungstaCPT while Muloro, Thi Nga Litshedzi, Vuthel'Umlilo and Duvha Lo Ni Penyela feature Muneyi Apple Music accessed 25 August 2026
- The documentary digitally mapped Philipstown and used data from the actual race to recreate the competition through CGI with Alex Jacques providing motorsport commentary Philipstown WireCar Company accessed 25 August 2026
- The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix is a 75-minute 2025 documentary directed by Paul Ward and produced by Giant Films Prime Video / Tribeca accessed 25 August 2026
- The film won the 2026 Webby Award for Best Documentary Storytelling The Webby Awards accessed 25 August 2026
- The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix won the Social Impact Award at Tribeca X 2026 Tribeca accessed 25 August 2026
- The Philipstown WireCar Foundation was named Digital Brand of the Year and The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix was the most decorated idea at the 2026 Bookmark Awards IAB South Africa accessed 25 August 2026
- The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix received a Silver Pixel for Use of Sound at the 2026 Bookmark Awards The Media Online accessed 25 August 2026
- The official Philipstown WireCar project describes the annual race as a three-kilometre competition with a history spanning more than 14 years Philipstown WireCar Company accessed 25 August 2026
- The Philipstown WireCar Grand Prix is currently available to stream on Prime Video Prime Video accessed 25 August 2026
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