Fatis digi.
Opening with a Dennis Brown feint, Katt whirls through vegetarianism, military repression, street crime and religious salvation.
Charged garage-rock from Vancouver, BC, Canada, 1970. Championed by the innumerate Enjoy The Experience: ‘Amongst my favorites, the sincerity and verve in the performances remain fresh to the ear and heart thirty years later.’
Bluesily poetic baritone singing in the great post-war tradition of Assèfa Abatè, Fréw Haylou, Asnaqètch Wèrqu, Kètèma Mèkonnen and co. Lovely.
This deadly Berlin—New Jersey nexus back in action, reinforced by the mighty Shifted.
F Planet itself is an in-for-the-kill stomper, husky and frantic, its sizzling bass and clanky hats inexorably dissolving in a sulphuric alarm of distortion and haywire bleeps. Astral Pilot ties you into a swirl of frequencies, rhythms and mechanical growling, before finally disentangling itself into some kind of cosmic lift-off. On the flip, grimly tightening the bolts, setting the controls inwards, and darkening and thickening its atmospheres into a kind of gut-churning possession, Shifted makes F Planet all his own.
Afro-space-disco murder — shuffling and wiggling, synthy and bubbling — from this re-incarnation of Willy Nfor’s Mighty Flames, recruited mostly from the wave of Cameroonian musicians drawn to Nigeria in the late-1970s by its heavy new funk sound. It’s a long way from Ohio, but the Troutmans are in the mix.
A third entertaining, deep selection of Studio One roots.
The drummer of the Gladiators Band and the Upsetters, recording with his own Solid Foundation Band at the Black Ark in the down-time of a Junior Byles’ session. A rework of The Animals’ version of an English folk song, with a leg-up from Byles’ own A Place Called Africa. Originally released on Sight’N'Sound, by Studio One.
Lovely, mystical roots, with an ace dub, touched with unmistakable Perry genius.
Magnificent 1980 roots, full of moody Channel One vibes.