AFRICAN HEAD CHARGE ALBUM ‘TRIP TO BOLGATANGA’ JULY 2023 - NEW ALBUM RELEASE The first new album produced by Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah and Adrian Sherwood since 2011

Co-founded by the legendary underground producer Adrian Sherwood, African Head Charge is a globally-acclaimed, pioneering dub-reggae ensemble led by original co-founder, master percussionist and royal rastaman, Bonjo Iyabhinghi Noah.

Pulsating with tribal drum beats and chanting from the soul of Africa, African Head Charge fuse together primal rhythms with heavy psychedelic dub, roots reggae and 21st century electronica. Formed originally as a studio project in 1981, the London-based collective has gone on to achieve cult status, creating 13 albums and gracing stages across the world, from Australia and New Zealand to Glastonbury music festival.

Their epic live show features a line-up of world-star performers, fusing together djembes, guitars, drums, keys and vocals with heavy electronic sampling. The collective use this blend of live and electronica to generate an intoxicating soundscape of reggae-inflected drumming, visceral vocals and bottomless, thrumming bass-lines that truly reach to the heart of your being.

With a deeper, darker and heavier live sound than ever before, African Head Charge are once again ready to enrapture their global fan-base, as well as reach out to a new generation of fans around the world.

*HISTORY * African Head Charge started life as a studio recording project in 1981 when the percussion talents of Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah combined with the studio wizardry of Adrian Sherwood. Bonjo had come to England from a Rasta camp in the hills of Clarendon, Jamaica. From as early as he can remember he studied and played percussion, learning not only Rasta/Nyabinghi drums but also African and Afro Cuban rhythms. He also loved to experiment, which made working with Sherwood perfect. Working with tape loops, manipulated and vari-speeded 1/4 inch tape that was re-recorded back to the multi-track tape, reverbs and delays, this was then applied to the performances of the musicians. And so the first psychedelic African dub LP My Life In A Hole In The Ground was created.

It was not until the late 1980s that African Head Charge made its first appearance as a live band, taking place at the University of London (ULU) and instantly a sold out success. What followed in the next few years gave them semi-legendary status, with performances at festivals such as Glastonbury and Womad, and visits to Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Three more largely experimental studio albums followed throughout the 80’s: Environmental Studies (1982), Drastic Season (1983) and Off The Beaten Track (1986). The latter has been hailed as both a seminal recording in the progressive use of sound-bite technology and an excellent example of the integration of live instrumentation and programmed music.

1990 saw the release of the Songs Of Praise LP widely acknowledged as their masterpiece. It featured religious chants from different parts of the world set to an African dub backdrop of multi-layered percussion and demonstrated another evolution in their sound. It was followed by the complimentary In Pursuit Of Shashamane Land album in 1993.

In 1995 Bonjo left London to start a new life in Ghana and it was not until 2003 that he made a return visit to London and renewed his partnership with Adrian Sherwood on Vision Of A Psychedelic Africa, released in 2005. Voodoo of the Godsent is their most recent studio album, described by the label as being ‘the culmination of thirty years of endeavor.’

In 2016 On-U Sound put out vinyl reissues of the first four African Head Charge albums, which had become increasingly sought after by DJs and collectors. These were followed this up with an LP of unreleased tracks and version excursions from from that same early-80s period, Return Of The Crocodile, carefully transferred from the original decaying tapes and sequenced for release by On-U archivist Patrick Dokter.

African Head Charge have returned to the live stage in recent years with a line-up featuring original African Head Charge members and augmented by the electronics of Gaudi (recently heard on Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Rainford and Heavy Rain). The current show fuses together djembes, guitars, drums, keys and vocals with heavy electronic sampling and visuals. The collective use this blend of live and electronica to generate an intoxicating soundscape of reggae-inflected drumming, visceral vocals and bottomless, thrumming bass-lines that truly reach to the heart of your being.

2020 - 2022 PRESS REVIEWS

“Sherwood brought nyahbinghi to the new age, he took African Head Charge to new heights. I don’t think we’ve ever seen the band this good!” - Reggae.be (Review of April 2022 London Live Show at the o2 Forum, Kentish Town)

“Some of the trippiest dub you’ll ever encounter.” - Dangerous Minds

“Sherwood used dub techniques to explore the outer regions of punk, reggae, Indian classical, belly dancer motifs, and more. (AHC) is his most heady and vital project” - Pitchfork

“It’s a joyful noise, shot through with heavy syncopated grooves, stealthy basslines, looped chants, depth-charge FX and a message of one-love positivity.” ★★★★ - Q Magazine

“Towering examples of dub as a freeform contagion” - The Wire

“The music on these albums is more like that of Sun Ra in that it heads for the unknown, so if you’re up for the voyage, it’ll be a trip, believe me” - Echoes

“These four albums remain excellent examples of the label’s out-there sonic philosophy” - Q Magazine

“African Head Charge found Sherwood flexing studio skills, using rumbling echo, ambitious tape edits and found sounds” - Uncut

“Furtive dub basslines, jew’s harp and marauding elephant horns wage battle with Sherwood’s backwards mixing experiments and Noah’s vast array of hand-drums” - Mojo

“They all sound remarkably fresh, highly accomplished and inspirational.” - Songlines

“They sound as vibrant, industrial and otherworldly as they did twenty odd years ago.” - Drift Records 'Reissue of the year'