African Head Charge
During the winter of 2016, anyone traveling through the town of Bolinas via California State Route 1 stood a good chance of experiencing a spooky nocturnal confrontation. Seems that wild coyotes would emerge from the brush, stare down drivers to compel a stop, sniff around the vehicle for a while, then retreat skulking into the pitch-black wilderness. It’s like something you’d expect in the opening scene of a Sam Shepard play.
One theory was that the wild dogs were feeding on a fungus species known as the fly agaric mushroom (amanita muscaria), which is known to have hallucinogenic properties when consumed. Residents had already been warned by county officials about the possible side effects of their pets eating the native fungus, so it made sense to assume that the behavior they observed was due to coyotes tripping balls on shrooms.
Anytime I hear dogs barking on a piece of music, such as Animals by Pink Floyd or “Been Caught Stealing” by Jane’s Addiction, it either comes across as a clever motif to support a theme (the former) or a ridiculous audio gimmick (the latter). Then there’s “Some Bizarre,” the second offering from Off the Beaten Track by African Head Charge, where non-musical inputs like recorded human speech and clinking bottles elevate a simple bass riff into new conceptual realms. By song’s end, the introduction of barking dogs is organically accepted as simply another compositional element. It also sounds wicked trippy, dude.
That is the weird and groovy world provided by percussionist Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah, dub producer Adrian Sherwood, and a revolving cast of musical contributors on their fourth and arguably best album (although many fans also highly rate Songs of Praise, released in 1990). Less of a band than a collective of audio anthropologists, AHC since 1981 have combined dub, reggae, post-punk, Afrobeat, industrial, and electronic musical influences into a swimmingly enticing and adventurous stew.
Background
In 1981, African Head Charge released their first album My Life in a Hole in the Ground on Adrian Sherwood’s On-U Sound label. The title was a play on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, the ersatz ethnographic document released by David Byrne and Brian Eno a year earlier. Sherwood sought to fully consummate Eno’s quote describing a “vision of psychedelic Africa,” only with more authenticity and street cred. Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah provided the rhythmic spine to support Sherwood’s skeletal treatments, blending UK punk and Jamaican dub influences against grooves that recall Afropop legend Fela Aníkúlápó Kútì.
Too many reviewers attribute AHC as a solely Sherwood production, which discounts the contributions Bonjo made to the ensemble’s overall sound. A self-taught percussionist who was raised in a Jamaican rasta camp, Bonjo honed his craft playing conga drums with jazz and reggae bands around London. Recorded during all-night studio sessions, much of the group’s material was constructed from multiple drum patterns Bonjo improvised. As he stated in a 2018 interview:
“I’d play a foundation, then I’d put something on top of it, then I’d put another thing on top of it, then another thing, and keep building until it became something. Then maybe have a bassline or add certain things. Sometimes we’d go in the studio and we didn’t even have a plan! Adrian had this studio in Berry Street, so it was just me and him alone in there. We’d just go there, he’d turn the thing on and I’d go in with my congas, and somehow anything I’d do he’d record it. Even if I’m sound-checking, he’d record everything and I’d say, ‘Why’d you record that? You record everything!’ That’s how African Head Charge really started.”
Earlier AHC albums operate more as sound sculptures than music for listening or dancing. Employing members of like-minded audio nihilists from the Pop Group and Rip Rig + Panic, the recordings have an almost claustrophobic feel. By the the time they recorded Off the Beaten Track, AHC had grown into a fully realized project: a fascinating nexus between improvisational dub reggae and digitally altered studio experimentation.
Tracks
Off the Beaten Track begins with the title cut, its clanging percussion and filtered vocals laying down a dissonant, cacophonous groove. The bass is deep, the sampled violins sound like they were recorded in the mountains of Macedonia, and the heavy dollops of reverb contribute to the sense of fuzzy disorientation.
The aforementioned “Some Bizarre” follows, and this is where AHC most closely resembles dub reggae. The bass is mixed close to the rhythm, with all sorts of percussion floating alongside the occasional industrial whoosh, clang, or buzz. And as you know, there are dogs.
“Belinda” features what sound like African tribal chants on top of an itchy, stop-start rhythm. It’s evident at this point what a powerhouse Bonzo is on the percussion. As interesting as Sherwood’s studio effects are, what makes AHC special for me are the intricate polyrhythmic drum textures, layering upon themselves like a tapestry with many openings.
“Language & Mentality” famously borrows an audio clip of Albert Einstein describing the link between language and the ability to reason. The accompanying music is slow and meditative, perfect for late night stoner sessions, and for me this is the album’s strongest offering.
“Throw It Away” is noisy fun to open side two, the closest the album comes to a classic “four-on-the-floor” rock tempo. The groove is interrupted by some sort of zither or xylophone rolls in the right channel, while an array of percussive and vocal noises touch all corners of the audio space Sherwood creates. Listening to this track just now, the phrase “sonic geometry” came to mind. Feel free to use that.
“Conspiring” offers slightly (and I emphasize the word slightly) more melodic interplay between the lead instruments and the beat. There’s an insistent picky-pack percussion rhythm, making the tempo seem much quicker than it is, and I love the little filtered synth noises that flutter in and out of the fog. Sherwood’s post-punk roots come forward on this track.
The ominous “Release the Doctor” brings us back to slow, slinky dub reggae. That’s followed “Down Under Again,” where we’re greeted by a growling chorus of didgeridoos. The track stays somewhat on brand until the end, when a drum hit repeats itself several times and goes silent. At track’s close, the bilious gurgling of a thousand didgeridoos is all that remains.
“Over the Sky” has a decidedly Middle Eastern flavor, featuring a violin or some other string instrument performing what might be a traditional folk song. The genius of the track emerges when the ornamentation is stripped away, revealing a spare yet compelling mini-drama. The track ends with the sampled voice of someone shrieking alongside what sound like pipes bursting.
“Good Things” closes the album thick with long-distance reverb. and if you’ve made it this far you might think AHC have no more surprises up their sleeves. And yet, near the two-minute mark there is a beautiful vocal foreshadowing the track’s slow descent into silence. If it’s possible for a piece of music to be threatening, fascinating, and uplifting all at once, AHC accomplish it here. A strong ending to a challenging album.
Aftermath
Off the Beaten Track marked something of a demarcation point for African Head Charge, as it was the group’s last album before a five-year hiatus. They reemerged in 1990 with the lauded Songs of Praise, operating more like a live band than a strictly studio outfit, and they continue to release sporadic recordings to this day. A year after the 1993 release of In Pursuit of Shashamane Land, Bonjo left London for Ghana to study the rich variety of drumming languages across the African continent. All of the group’s early work has been re-released on vinyl as double albums.
One can hear a correlation between the spacey legacy of classic AHC recordings and such latter-day sonic practitioners as Tortoise, Tricky, DJ Spooky, .O.Rang, the Orb, the Informati, Burial, Severed Heads, and Painkiller. I might argue, in fact, that AHC strongly contributed to the birth of 1990s illbient, post-rock, and trip-hop, thus influencing a new generation of artists committed to exploring the outer boundaries of sound and personal expression.
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