After years of crate-diggers scouring Africa for long-forgotten vinyl, we are finally starting to see some real results.
A host of labels such as Soundway Records, Analog Africa, Strut Records and Vampisoul have released some killer compilations of 1970s psychedelic rock, disco and funk in the past few years. These have focused on long-lost recordings from Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Benin — and now, ladies and gentlemen, it is Zambia’s turn.
Rising to the occasion is Now Again Records, which this year began to release a bunch of Zambian psychedelic rock reissues, the best of which was the reissue of Amanaz’s 1975 album Africa.
Amanaz hailed from Kitwe, Zambia’s third largest city, and Africa is their only known recording, which is a real shame, because it is so good that this band deserved to have a lengthy career.
Drenched in fuzz guitar, it has already been hailed as a lost stoner-rock classic and its hints of influence, ranging from The Velvet Underground to The Stooges, are confusing to say the least.
One has to ask how likely is it that records by those bands had reached Zambia by 1975.The garage-band feel is most obvious when lead singer Keith Kabwe stretches his vocal range, which results in a few off-key moments that are aesthetically very punk.
Highlights include the funk monster Easy Street, the Stooges-esque stomper History of Man and the gorgeous Sunday Morning, which sounds like latter-day Velvet Underground.
Another Zambian reissue from Now Again Records is the 1975 album Lazy Bones! by Witch, which stands for “we intend to cause havoc”.
Witch were a more straight-ahead psych-rock band than Amanaz, with the album sounding very much like one you would expect from five Zambians aping Jimi Hendrix’s guitar histrionics and James Brown’s solid funk grooves.
Black Tears begins life as a psych-folk number but soon explodes into a fuzz-guitar freak out, whereas Motherless Child is a blues-riff-driven garage-rock number.
Strange Dream veers more towards the type of psychedelic pop that dominated the British air waves in the late 1960s, whereas Look Out and Off Ma Boots are funkier numbers that are not entirely convincing.
Following the reissue of Lazy Bones!, Now Again Records also released Witch’s second album, Introduction, but I have not been able to track it down.
Another Zambian rock reissue, by Groovie Records, comes in the form of The Peace’s Black Power album.
The Peace are probably the most obscure band of the lot. They originally went by the name The Boyfriends and featured Emmanuel Chanda, who would later go on to join Witch. The album is so rare that the reissue has been made using an old vinyl copy that was in less than ideal shape. This has resulted in some prominent noise on several tracks. But the funky rock music the band was recording deserves to be heard, so this can be excused.
All four of these Zambian rock albums can be ordered over the internet in vinyl or CD form. Online music store www.insound.com had all of them listed for sale when the Mail & Guardian checked, with CDs costing between R135 and R145 and limited-edition vinyls costing between R240 and R380, excluding shipping.
Now let’s hope that the next reissue is long-lost Zambian rock band Blackfoot, whose track Groovy Bone is as close as you are going to get to the African equivalent of Iggy Pop.