Bleep

While it may have started largely as a studio project led by Adrian Sherwood, African Head Charge had become a fully collaborative endeavour by the time of 1990’s definitive Songs Of Praise LP due to the increasing prominence of the percussion and vocals of Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah. This proved to be a good thing - many consider Songs Of Praise to be among the band’s finest work - and three years later the pair combined to great effect once more on In Pursuit Of Shashamane Land.

This record contained some of the group’s most vibrant music to date, with Noah coaxing out some shards of light from Sherwood’s previously rather murky aesthetic. While some of these tracks spiral off into the cosmos in much the same way as Sherwood’s early dub experiments, there are also moments here that draw on the rhythmic drive of 80s no-wave groups like Liquid Liquid and Guerilla Welfare. Brian Eno and David Byrne’s ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’, a key record in the African Head Charge story, also makes its presence felt.

This new edition of In Pursuit Of Shashamane Land unites the original track-listing with eight bonus cuts including two long-lost cousins - namely ‘Mama Shante Garden’ and ‘Run Come See Me’, tunes which were included on a bonus 7-inch that was given away with a thousand pressings of In Pursuit Of Shashamane Land when it first emerged in 1993. The LP comes with a 24” x 12” poster, photographs of the group and an excerpt from a five part interview with Noah.

African Head Charge’s 1993 LP In Pursuit Of Shashamane Land, a masterpiece in dubwise sonics and sample art, gets a souped-up reissue through On-U Sound.