Afreaka
I’d never heard this, or even heard of it, until it was suggested by YouTube’s algorithm. I wouldn’t normally say I’m grateful to that algorithm but, in this case, I am.
Afreaka, by Demon Fuzz is that rarest of things, black, British psychedelia, or at least heavily influenced by psychedelia. I only know what I can find on the internet, although (spoiler) I bought the cd and it has a booklet that might tell me more when it arrives.
The band members were part of the immigration from the Caribbean to London in the early sixties. While the stereotype would suggest they would become a ska band–and you can hear ska influence–in fact they took a trip to Morroco and heard North African music. By the end of the sixties they appear to have had a number of gigs under different names, but it was on the back of performances at Ronnie Scott’s that they were heard and recorded Afreaka.
Incidentally, while the popular history of underground music in the UK and London goes heavy on the likes of UFO and other clubs, I concluded some months ago that Ronnie Scott’s is equally important.
The album was released in either October or November 1970; I haven’t found a definitive date.
There is a mass of influences on this, from ska to jazz to Hendrix to soul to African to r’n’b. At one point during Another Country I thought I heard distant echoes of the Mothers of Invention. One is left wondering how it can be that a band this good can be forgotten (you didn’t get gigs at Ronnie Scott’s by being average), while bald white blokes on YouTube and Amazon ascribe legendary status to mediocre white bands of the time. Some of that is undoubtedly bad luck, but a lot is going to be, if not explicit racism, then the more structurally racist assumption that this music is not what black musicians ought to be playing.
In parts it sounds of its time, but that doesn’t matter to me. This deserves to be heard and celebrated. If you want to do that by buying the original album, by the way, you’ll have to be prepared to pay upwards of £300 because of its popularity with DJs looking for samples.
It is available, with additional tracks (one of which, Fuzz Oriental Blues, has gone onto my 1970 playlist) on Spotify and is also available on YouTube.
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