Bleep

African Head Charge have operated at a scintillating intersection of Jamaican, Ghanaian, and British music since forming in 1981, and with their first new material in over a decade in 2023, the band present some of their best music to date. Any act stepping back into the spotlight is a reason to rejoice, but with how long it’s been since we last saw African Head Charge grace the airwaves, there’s a real cause for celebration this time around. Their last batch of new tracks came in 2011 on Voodoo Of The Godsent followed by a reissue series of their hefty catalogue. With A Trip To Bolgatanga, Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah, Adrian Sherwood, and co. are back in full swing, heading from the UK to Ghana to record an electrified variety of psychedelic dub infused with West African folk.

The risks in taking such a long break from their status as a legendary act are considerable, but Noah’s travels across Ghana reassure there’s value in taking one’s time, and the results certainly justify the wait. There’s an immense variety of drums and traditional music all over West Africa, let alone Ghana, and A Trip To Bolgatanga contains years of Noah’s journeying to learn about them. “All the drumming and the chanting, it took a while to do,” he says of the album’s development. “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.”

"A bad attitude is like a flat tyre" the mission statement on the opening track dictates with an uplifting spirit , "you can't go anywhere until you change it" What follows is a round of impassioned vocals and group chants, drums bubbling and reverberating, and echoing dub production colouring kologo strums and clinking percussion. The band fold in a cross continental melting pot of references: the syncopated rhythms and bass worship of Jamaica, the talking drums and elements of highlife from Ghana, and psychedelic electronics from the UK.

‘Accra Electronica’ switches the mood up instantly with boisterous and smooth saxophones gliding over a deep beat, powered by dub bass, downtempo house rhythms, and funk tinged wah guitars. 'Push Me Pull You' takes things even further into a menacing atmosphere of stormy bass creating friction with trilling, dextrous woodwinds. Urgently paced tabla drums hop between Adrian Sherwood’s turbulent club edits, verging on abstract and deconstructed dub with skipping vocal cuts and rhythms. Meanwhile, 'I Chant Too' is lush and dreamy with spaced out pads, leading into the heavy, hazy fills of brass on 'Passing Clouds', expertly mixing the Western drum kit with West African percussion in a gleaming display of psychedelic dub. Showing off the album's melange of styles, the title track blends together blissful piano and string plucks, vibrating rhodes, and a steady groove in a mellow, soulful downtempo jam.

On-U Sound’s incredible legacy is continued in African Head Charge, with the band being conceived of in the label’s early years “to make Brian Eno’s “vision of a psychedelic Africa” exist in musical form. Over forty years into their career, Sherwood and the band have undoubtedly succeeded with their vision: they’re still a cut above the rest, connecting continents, cultures, and musical practices together to make one of the most cohesive and inventive reggae albums this side of the millennium.