The psychedelic dub pioneers craft an album-length tribute to bandleader Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah's hometown.
Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah Photo: Supplied
At the start of the eighties, legendary dub producer Adrian Sherwood founded On-U Sound Records. His career has seen him work with icons like Lee Scratch Perry and Horace Andy, becoming synonymous with a certain aggressive type of dub sound that he helped apply to other genres like industrial, and dance music.
On-U Sound is an extension of that, housing names like Tackhead, Gary Clail, Dub Syndicate, and African Head Charge, a collaboration between Sherwood and percussionist Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah. They’ve released their first album in twelve years, and it’s a celebration of Noah’s home.
African Head Charge released their first album in 1981, describing themselves as a ‘psychedelic dub ensemble’. It’s a fitting description for music that has Sherwood’s fondness of effects and weird sounds prominently featured alongside Noah’s hand drumming. A revolving cast of musicians have coalesced around them on the nineteen or so albums since then, and halfway through that run, Noah relocated to the place he got his band name - specifically north Ghana.
This album is their most specific celebration of place, pairing African instruments like the kologo (which resembles a lute), with dubwise bottom end.
There’s an unmistakably modern sheen to tracks like that one, 'Accra Electronica' (Accra being the capital of Ghana), but the album is built around Noah’s melange of percussive instruments, and style of playing.
He said “It took a while to do. I’m always meeting drummers, all over Ghana. The Fante, the Akim, the Ga, the Bolgatanga, all the tribes, and they all have their different drums. I try to learn as much as I can, and put it all together.”
He goes on to compare the act of music-making to cooking, saying “You’re blending all of the elements, like yam, banana, pumpkin, and the end taste, that’s where it matters”.
On tracks like ‘Passing Clouds’ those elements include the tempo and space of a dub track, and some woozily-arranged horn lines.
Sherwood once famously referred to himself as tone deaf, saying he preferred to make noises rather than melody, and that track features some great examples: swelling white noise, endless delay on Noah’s drumming, and something that sounds like an electronic jaw harp. My favourite aspect though is the wonderfully blown out bassline.
The album’s most irreverent cut is ‘I’m a Winner’, with distinctly African harmonies bumping up against autotune and a chirpy synth pulse.
That an album from an outfit entering their fourth decade of existence is this forward-thinking shouldn't be surprising when you consider their pedigree. African Head Charge were always ahead of the curve with their vision of psychedelic bass music, and A Trip to Bolgatanga is doubly impressive in how it adds a new string to their bow: with its emphasis on Noah’s hometown and its community, this might be their most personal outing.
