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Chrissy Zebby Tembo & Ngozi Family “My Ancestors” (Chris Edition) Zambia is well over a thousand miles from the west African Highlife & Afrobeat scenes, & stylistically the "Zam Rock" of the '70's was on a totally separate, post acid rock trajectory. "My Ancestors" is easily one of the best African psychedelic rock album ever recorded - raw, rough, with a gaping charm & tons of front & center fuzz guitar over basic, ultra catchy rock/pop tunes reminiscent in style to maybe the Velvet Underground (though I’d have to guess the similarity is coincidental), with a couple semi heavy proto riff-rockers thrown in. Tembo is the singer/songwriter & drummer, & Paul Ngozi plays fantastic guitar all over this, & a bassist rounds out the basic arrangements. The vox are just wobbly & drugged enough to meet the feel of the music, while “on” enough to carry the melodies, which are central to the songs. The songs are sung in English & lyrically quite good, which is actually more of a sort of bonus attraction, since this is a feel album & you wouldn’t necessarily need to even understand the lyrics to get into it, the feel is so right on. This is the type of record you listen to over & over, feeling great every time. Incidentally it includes the track “Oh yeh yeh” which was featured in the “Love, Peace, & Poetry” African comp. Originally released in Zambia in ’74. |
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