Bleep

Getting new material after a decade from a celebrated band is certainly reason to rejoice, and African Head Charge are doing just that on their latest record A Trip To Bolgatanga. Their last batch of new tracks came in 2011 on Voodoo Of The Godsent followed by a reissue series of their hefty catalogue, 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.

"A bad attitude is like a flat tyre," the mission statement on the opening track goes, "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 twangy guitars. ‘Accra Electronica’ switches the mood up instantly with boisterous saxophones gliding over a deep beat powered by dub bass and funk tinged guitars, and 'Push Me Pull You' takes things even further into a menacing atmosphere of stormy bass and trilling woodwinds, skittering drums and skipping vocal cuts and rhythms.

'I Chant Too' is lush and dreamy with smoothed out, spacey pads, leading into the heavy, hazy fills of brass on 'Passing Clouds', expertly mixing the Western drum kit with West African percussion. 'Trip To Bolgatanga' shows off the album's melange of styles with blissful piano and string plucks, vibrating rhodes, and a steady groove forming a downtempo jam.

African Head Charge are at a scintillating intersection of Jamaican, Ghanaian, and British music with their first new material in over a decade.