Bleep

Pulling as much from the brutalist abstractions of New York no wave as it does from the rich drumming traditions of West Africa, My Life In A Hole In The Ground was the germination of one of On-U Sound’s longest running acts. What started as a studio project for Adrian Sherwood’s dub science lab experiments in 1981 eventually became the vehicle of Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah’s vibrant percussion mastery; African Head Charge took its name and inspiration from Brian Eno and David Byrne’s seminal album My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, bringing the concept of a “psychedelic Africa” to new places, and playing a key role in the label’s pioneering status.

On their debut album, the group mix sparse and skeletal dub FX with traditional rhythms and smoky jazz excursions. For those first introduced to African Head Charge in 1981, it was an unmistakable vision of psychedelic dub experimentation right from the beginning, with bongos rolling into the half lucid effects and springy mouth harp verging on acid in ‘Elastic Dance’. As the bass of ‘Family Doctoring’ steps along to East Asian styled melodica and ballistic percussion, the album continues to push familiar dub jams into increasingly leftfield structures.

Perhaps unsurprising, then, that ‘Far Away Chant’ found its way into an infamously grisly scene from David Lynch’s Wild At Heart. Already sludgily placed, with prominent bass like molasses and King Cry Cry AKA Prince Far I’s manipulated vocals swimming through it all, Lynch slowed the track down to soporific pace, perfectly matching the eccentric characters and his trademark surreality. It’s a testament to African Head Charge’s explorative, wide reaching and enduring legacy, further evidenced by the elephantine saxophone cries of ‘Crocodile Shoes’, the groovy yet labyrinthine ‘Stone Chant’ with serrated alien buzzes, and the constant trot of Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah’s drums at the centre of it all.