Releases

Analog Africa continues to document 70s African rock

By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 9 July 2010

In the eighth instalment in its compilation series featuring 70s rock music from around Africa, the Analog Africa label has announced the release of ‘Afro-Beat Airways: West African Shock Waves – Ghana & Togo 1972-1979’. As ever, label boss Samy Ben Redjeb’s obsessive collection of African music is whittled down to a handful of pure gems.

Says Ben Redjeb: “I arrived in Ghana and, as on all my previous trips to Accra, the first person I paid a visit to was producer Dick Essilfie-Bonzie, who I simply call Mr Essiebons after his legendary label Essiebons Records. [He] explained that after more than a decade of being out of business he had decided ‘to give it another shot’ and thus digitised all his master tapes for future releases. He showed me the result: a box containing approximately 80 CDs, each with a tracklisting – a total of 800 songs”.

He continues: “I was allowed to take the ‘surprise’ box to my hotel room and started listening. I had no idea what to expect, but I was in for a treat. Previously unreleased material by Apagya Show Band and Orchestre Abass were the first few amazing tracks that I discovered and that’s when I decided to start working on this compilation”.

The compilation will be released on 2 Aug. Here’s the full tracklist:

Uppers International – Dankasa
Apagya Show Band – Ma Nserew Me
K Frimpong & His Cubano Fiestas – Me Yee Owu Den
Marijata – Break Through
African Brothers Band – Ngyegye No So
Orchestre Abass – Awula Bo Fee Ene
Ebo Taylor & The Sweet Beans – Odofo Nyi Akyiri Biara
Pagadeja Custom Band – Okpe See
De Frank Professionals – Afe Ato Yen Bio
Apagya Show Band – Mumunde
Rob – More
Cos-Ber-Zam – Ne Noya
Uppers International – Neriba Lanchina
Ebo Taylor & The Pelicans – Come Along
Orchestre Abass – Operation Bye-Bye (vinyl only)
Third Generation Band – Obiye Saa Wui (vinyl only)