Anyone who has visited a record shop in the past five years will no doubt have noted, attractively repackaged collections of ‘70s African music have been claiming ever more space in the reissue racks, and, by this point it is probably a fair bet that most open-minded (read: financially solvent) music fans will have taken the bait and started to give ‘em a go.

Whilst there is no doubt much opportunity here is begin moaning about the excesses of first world ‘boutique’ vinyl snobbery and context-free assimilation of other cultural forms etc, I’ll leave that to others, because personally speaking, the process of digging this stuff (as processed via the reigning comp-lords at labels like Now Again, Soundway etc) has proved an extremely rewarding process, hepping me to all manner of intoxicating sounds whose varied nature and significance I shan’t strain your patience by listing and unpacking here.

In a similar spirit of conciseness then, let’s just say that if, like me, you have developed a particular taste for that sweet spot where indigenous African pop/folk traditions collide head-first with the overriding influence of Anglo-American rock and soul, this new compendium represents The Motherlode as far as Nigeria’s post-civil war ‘afro rock’ boom is concerned.

Though it was the epochal World Psychedelic Classics 3: Love’s a Real Thing comp that first drawn my attention to cuts like OFO The Black Company’s incendiary ‘Allah Wakbarr’, and Soundway’s mammoth Nigeria Rock Special may have filled in the gaps, familiarising me with names like Ofege and The Funkees, focus and context is nonetheless the key when it comes to this sort of thing, and this is what puts ‘Wake Up You!’ ahead of the pack.

From the gut-punch of Gilles Caron’s cover photograph to the extensive historical background outlined in Uchenna Ikonne’s near book-length liner notes, there is I think much to be said for Now Again’s decision to tackle head-on the kind of uncomfortable realities surrounding this music that other African reissues can be a touch too shy about fully acknowledging.

And I don’t need to say much more on that score really – you’ve listened to Fela, you’ve read around a bit - you know the deal. When investigating African rock, jazz and highlife for the first time, Western listeners (myself included) will often tend to feel disappointed that so little of this music is overtly angry or political, but, as a few spins of this comp and a perusal of Ikonne’s text will make clear, such a train of thought is an exercise in grievous point-missing. With a hellish civil war and corrupt authoritarian lockdown bookending the period of relative freedom within which the groups represented on this comp flourished, many of the musicians herein faced down the worst of both no less than any of the country’s other citizens, and the fact that they came out of it smiling and ready to party is in many ways the only political statement required.

Without wishing to labour the point, there is an argument to be made that the kind of aggression and anguish that overflows from – and indeed, increasingly defines – the rock music of stable, democratic countries is entirely surplus to requirements in an environment in which the eventual results of such self-destructive social currents must be dealt with on a day to day basis. Whilst Ikonne’s text inevitably soon falls back into a familiar pattern of chronicling the kind of management entanglements, ego-clashes and band break-ups that render ‘rock history’ a drag the world over, none of this hum-drum backstage business carries across into the music itself – and neither, more pointedly, does the musicians’ rather varied experiences during the war. (Amongst other things, I was astonished to read in Ikonne’s text that pop music was considered such a vital aid to morale in the Biafran conflict that fighting units on both sides were encouraged to ‘adopt’ their own regimental rock bands, and that it was in this context that many of the outfits represented here received their first exposure.)

If such a background played upon the minds of the band members, there seems to have been a collective understanding that their audience – whether military or civilian - simply didn’t want to hear about it, and as working musicians, probably struggling to make the weekly payments on their rare & precious equipment, the groups didn’t feel much inclined to force it upon them. (A welcome counter-point to the introspective, heart-on-sleeve drudgery that was becoming increasingly prevalent in Anglo-American rock of the same period.)

At one point, Ikonne describes the heavier, post-civil war sound of pioneering ‘60s pop band The Hykkers as “..rugged and murky, pulsing with the threat of barely contained violence; Guitars screeching like low-flying fighter jets, bass lines thrumming like trundling tank tracks”. With the best will in the world however, listeners accustomed to the bombastic hullabaloo of post-1970 Western rock will have trouble identifying such intent within the highlife-indebted James Brown shuffle of the group’s mild-mannered anti-drugs anthem ‘Stone The Flower’ - or indeed in most of the other selections included on ‘Wake Up You!’.

Indeed, “anger has no place on the dance floor” would seem to be the unspoken message of many of the cuts featured herein, and, as cloying as direct hymns to love and togetherness may have become in Anglo-American rock culture in the aftermath of the collapse of the ‘60s counter-culture, here by contrast they maintain a power and strength of feeling which suggests that irony, ennui and easy cynicism had precious little relevance for musicians and listeners who have just spent a few years at the mercy of all-too-real hunger and violence.

From the opening chords of Formulars Dance Band’s ‘Never Never Let Me Down’ – gentle funk strumming and fudge-thick, spiralling organ notes breaking through the patina of surface noise alongside a heart-breakingly earnest, imperfect declaration of undying love - to the everyone-on-the-floor inclusive funk throw-downs of The Hygrades and The Funkees, the Zam-Rock-esque riff lullaby of Waves’ ‘Mother’ and the exploratory, Fela-indebted groove-outs of Aktion’s ‘Groove the Funk’ and Wrinkar Experience’s exquisitely melancholy dance floor smash ‘Ballad of a Sad Young Woman’, this is music that sinks into your soul like cosmic butter, forcibly reminding you that, however bad life on this planet may become, however much soul-withering, genocidal shit might go down over the next few years, as long as somewhere in the world there is a generator, a stage, a PA, some amps, and a bunch of people up there willing to give of themselves as generously and joyously as the guys in these bands did whilst an audience eats and drinks and smokes what they please, as long as there is one foot being placed in front of the other as the dance begins – things are still gonna be alright.

And then, just when you’ve finally reconciled yourself to the outlook described above and given up hope of ever finding The African Stooges, an outfit named War-Head Constriction suddenly come crashing in with the most assaultive outbursts of  fuzz-wah whiteout I’ve heard all year, like Mizutani-San himself just got up on stage for a guest spot. Holy shit.

So, in closing – the next time you find yourself sinking into ennui, sick of festivals, sick of bloody gigs, sick of records – just put this on for an immediate reminder of what the fucking point is, and more importantly, what it sounds like.

In fact, I still have volume # 2 of this comp lying untouched – saving it up because volume # 1 is just too good.

Available direct from Now-Again in the US, consult yr local dealer elsewhere.

Labels: best of 2016, comps & reissues, Nigeria