Hedzoleh

Ghana’s Hedzoleh Soundz – an aggregate of rock musicians and members of the Ghanaian Arts Council’s traditional music troupe – were among the vanguard of African acts reappraising their musical heritage in the early 70s, pitching instruments such as wui flute to the fore. Though the lilting ‘Rekpete’ opens with the halting whistle of a carnival tune, much of the rest of this reissued album is heavily experimental and often psychedelic, built around ominous call-and-response refrains and disorientating time signatures. The amplified thumb piano of ‘Hedzoleh!’ is a livewire link to Konono No 1, while ‘Yei Baa Gbe Wo’ sounds like some extended incidental music from an African sequel to The Wicker Man. And though a panoply of percussion roots the project in the band’s backyard, extraneous influences nevertheless bleed through: a whiff of Woodstock in the Santana-esque squalls of ‘Mee Bee’; and the random surf guitar in the title-track.

But it’s the fearlessness of what they do with this cultural drift that’s fascinating and verging on avant-garde. Not least on ‘Hearts Ne Kotoko’, where lines of supine guitar meet clanking ancient cross¬rhythms, while an agitated vocal rants between the cracks: it’s like the Meters on medication. When it breaks into buoyant Afro-funk midway through, you can feel the flutes hit the sky. Hugh Masekela subsequently head-hunted Hedzoleh for his backing band, and you can bet they never went quite this far out again.