s/d: african psych

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/images/B00142Q7WI/ref=dp_image_0/202-3522128-2446259?ie=UTF8&n=229816&s=music

AMAAAAZING

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51lHEwnXUxL._SS400_.jpg

amaaaaaaazing?

amaaaaaaaaazing!

hint it is on the internets if u look

http://www.emusic.com/img/album/111/780/11178061_155_155.jpeg

Not sure if you'd necessarily call these songs psych, but man are they good

That was me. I especially recommend The Funkees.

ok, so i have a crappy mp3 of the funkees doing a cover of atomic rooster's "breakthrough" - anyone know if that's been compiled anywhere? a friend of mine sent the mp3 to me, it's lo-fi and i think taken from an ebay auction...

http://progressive.homestead.com/Africa4.html

This psychedelic africans blog is the most amazing and the greatest:

http://www.voodoofunk.blogspot.com/

Lately I've been liking Green Arrows, Bembeya Jazz, 22 Band

That Voodoo Funk blog looks great. It also looks like it's been abandoned as of now (the author's last post says he's going back to NYC and implies that he's not going to post new content anymore).

Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey - Juju Jubilee is pretty psych

Not sure if it qualifies, but this Orlando Julius & His Modern Aces disc has a song called Psychadelic Afro Shop, and it's supposedly a dynamite album.

I've got that Julius 2CD set. The second disc is great, but the first disc is more conventional R&B style, almost in the vein of say Hank Ballard & the Midnighters (not like that's a bad thing - I love Hank Ballard - but it's not psychedelic or funky in the way the rest of the stuff on this thread is).

new soundway comp THE WORLD ENDS: AFRO ROCK & PSYCHEDELIA IN 1970S NIGERIA is pretty damn hotttttttttttttt. double cd set. triple vinyl.

These discs kick much booty.:

AMANAZ Africa (Q.D.K. / Normal) cd 16.98
The lo-fi, garagey, psychedelic "Zam Rock" scene that flourished in the southern African nation of Zambia during the mid '70s is now getting some long overdue exposure and appreciation over here, thanks to a bunch of recent reissues: Chrissy Zebby Tembo, Ngozi Family, Witch (highlighted last list) and now, also the lesser known but no less amazing Amanaz! Like Witch its reissue was facilitated by Egon of Stones Throw, who also wrote the liner notes, which make us realize how lucky we are to have these reissues, 'cause the original Zambian LPs are super rare and, Egon says, usually in about the same poor condition as an experienced frisbee. He also helps explain the genesis of the Zam Rock movement, suggesting that Zambia's Socialist government required a preponderance of "Zambian" content on the radio. Apparently the gov't also mandated a high fuzz content as well!
The Amanaz album, from 1975, certainly fulfills that quota, though at first listen we thought that maybe this one was mellower than some of the others like Witch, and parts if it are, in a stoned sorta way, and it's also somewhat more "African" sounding as befits its title, in its rhythms and vocal stylings, with some of the singing doing in the Bembe tongue, though most songs are in English. But still there's quite a supply of heavy fuzz here, with the likes of "History Of Man" being plenty brutal in that dep't. for sure!
And man is it beautiful, full of lovely, lovely grooves in a warm bath of lo-fi hiss and hum, maybe not as gritty as Witch and Ngozi but still gritty enough, and maybe even more memorably groov'd. There's fully a dozen songs here and it's hard to pick highlights, we dig 'em all, somehow so fuzzy yet so gentle, well, not always gentle, like how the otherwise laidback "Nsunka Lwendo" includes a phenomenally LOUD and PIERCING guitar solo, that wanders back and forth from left channel to the right channel, looking for a way to crack into your skull. Meanwhile the sizzling, syncopated "Green Apple" throbs with what almost sounds like a buried Geezer Butler bass line, and the exuberant "Making The Scene" features a part that we swear appears on a Witchcraft album, or close to anyway! Wow. More proof Zam Rock RULES. Recommended

SUCK Time To Suck (Shadoks Music) cd 17.98
The main problem with unearthed supposed 'proto-metal' rarities or 'holy grail' psychedelic artifacts, is that after hearing for years and years how amazing and heavy and fuzzed out they are, often when we finally get to hear them, they so often sound a lot more like ordinary bar rock, or blues rock, the hype far exceeding the sound.
No such problem with South African heavies Suck. This, their only record has been circulating for years as a bootleg, and the first time we saw it, we knew it had to be good. The cover was a cool black and white photo of a little long haired hippy kid sitting in the grass next to a kick drum, the band was called Suck (rumored to have almost been called FUCK), and the record was called Time To Suck, they covered Sabbath and King Crimson and Deep Purple, they're from South Africa and the record originally came out in 1970. It HAD to be good. But we were cautious, we had most definitely been burned before, but thankfully there was no need for caution cuz holy shit is this stuff amazing. Hard and heavy, super rocking, wildly psychedelic, the fact that if you weren't familiar with the covers here you'd be hard pressed to pick out the one original says a lot about these guys.
Apparently Suck were infamous in South Africa for raucous, sometimes violent, always chaotic live shows, they were only a band for 8 months, and in that time only ever recorded ONE original track, and released one proper album, Time To Suck.
Two Grand Funk Railroad tunes, "Aimless Lady" and "Sin's A Good Man's Brother", King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man", "Season Of The Witch" by Donovan, Free's "I'll Be Creeping", Deep Purple's "Into The Fire", "Elegy" by Colosseum and finally Black Sabbath's "War Pigs". That's a serious selection of songs. Then there's the one original, "The Whip", a killer chunk of Zeppeliny slither and Sabbathy crunch, some wildly proggy arrangements, frenzied guitar leads, incredible drumming, and lead vocalist Andrew Ionnides' Robert Plant like wail. A churning heavy metallic rock jam that sounds right at home amongst all those better known tunes.
Their version of "21st Century Schizoid Man" is fierce and super distorted and as heavy if not more so than the original. "Season Of The Witch" burns slowly, peppered with cool fluttering flutes and all sorts of subtle guitar filigree, and of course "War Pigs", that takes balls to tackle that one, especially in 1970, but these guys definitely make it their own, staying pretty true to the original, minus an even more blown out intro, and the addition of some weird percussive string plucks or maybe bongos, way up in the mix, but makes it even more dizzyingly psychedelic, and if anything, their version as a whole is just a bit more chaotic and off kilter, an definitely faster, more like the German TV version of the Sabs you can find on YouTube.
Needless to say, this is an essential proto-metal document, one that is actually pretty metal, fuzzed out, super heavy, intensely rocking, psychedelic and druggy, plenty proggy, and well, the song selection can't be beat!

bumping this newly-discovered thread because i love it.

sorry, newly-rediscovered thread.

http://www.website.com/aliens-1.jpeg

well, doesn't look like that worked...

So, yeah. Just go to the Voodoo Funk blog mentioned upthread & get a severe load of the "Psychedelic Alliens" rekkid cover complete with a Vox bass & a band member rolling on the floor.

i love looking at the album covers on that blog. a lot of those songs wind up on the great reissue labels, e.g., soundways. as great as those labels are, i wish soundways would use the old discs' covers.

"Blacky Joe" on that new Soundways comp is completely awesome and unlike anything I've yet heard.

I've got the Love Peace & Poetry comp, but it's mostly British colonist dudes imitating Sgt. Pepper. The liners recommend a few recs to search for the non-SA cats (Blo's Chapter One, Ofege's Try An Love , but I wondered if the hivemind might have some suggestions.

what I've heard of that Amanaz is really interesting. I've heard that the CD has pretty decent sound so can you finally hear the fuzz guitar properly or is there still a major gap between what you can hear on headphones & through the air?
I just read somebody somewhere complaining about that and I think they were talking about an earlier version.
Think cd is now done through contact with lead singer at least so, does that mean access to something along the lines of master tapes?

What else is currently thought of as essential?
& does the Question Mark lp hold up? heard 2 tracks from it on youtube and I wasn't immediately impressed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-uratquEIE

^ absolutely epic spaced-out psych groove from King Sunny Ade

2012 version of Orchestre Poly-Rythmo (minus 3 deceased originals) touring the US now.

Got the Amanaz cd last week and think its pretty great. Interested by the overlap in sound with the Velvets of s/t & Loaded. Assuming it is just coincidence cos I'd be surprised if people in Zam had heard of the VU but there are a number of points that sound uncannily similar.

Also love the Hedzoleh lp and the Edzayawa set

wish there was a full set of Ofo & the Black co was very surprised by that on first hearing cos it verges on heavy space rock.

Kings of HIstory by Shirati Jazz is worth hearing too. Nice percussive guitar in abundance.

I'd be surprised if people in Zam had heard of the VU but there are a number of points that sound uncannily similar.

Maybe its the other way around and VU got tapes of them!

yeah, handy time machine too, I think the Africa lp comes from '75. Like 6 years after the fact.

ha