Sad, Serious and Uplifting

Fantastic psychedelic rock album recorded by Amanaz in Zambia in ’75; & in the early '70s Zambian way stylistically very much rooted in late ‘60s psych, with a few African moves thrown in here & there for flavor. Amanaz were a five piece band (two guitars, bass, drums, vox) & all five members wrote & sang, so there is a fair amount of variety in the songs, though they are stylistically coherent, moving from a sort of semi-Africanized “Loaded” Velvets feel to something maybe along the lines of a stripped down Iron Butterfly, maybe even hinting at something like early Funkadelic, but always high level, plenty of fuzz, riffs, post Ginger Baker drumming, & with a ramshackle underground sound & feel – raw, organic, beautiful. This feels like it was hand carved out of an old tree, rather than recorded in a studio. Mostly sung in English, with a couple of tunes in the Bemba language. A fairly close parallel would be the equally brilliant Chrissy Zebby Tembo album “My Ancestors,” also recorded in Zambia & released around the same time. Beautiful Sunday morning comedown feel. Sounds good immediately, but repeated listens reveals rare timeless magic. note; to me, i hear Taj Mahal meets VU meets Amon Duul. download here via thanks sam sweet