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"Issued in 1975, this is the articulation of Zambia\u2019s Zamrock ethos. While other albums - Rikki Ililonga\u2019s Zambia, WITCH\u2019s Lazy Bones!! - are competitors, it\u2019s hard to best this album as it covers each major quadrant of the Zamrock whole: it came from the mines; its musicians were anti-colonial freedom fighters, it envelops Zambian folk music traditions, and it rocks - hard.\nAmanaz were serious, and they made a serious stab at an album. They titled their album Africa, according to original band member Keith Kabwe, \u201Cbecause of how it was shared and how its inhabitants were butchered and enslaved, its resources stolen\u2026 all the atrocities slave drivers committed. \u201C Thus, their \u201CKale,\u201D a blues sung in Nyanja, that traced the continent\u2019s arc from slavery to Zambia\u2019s independence closes the album.\nKabwe and rhythm guitarist John Kanyepa have a winsome softness to their vocals, which sit politely aside the feral growl of drummer Watson Baldwin Lungu, bassist Jerry Mausala and bandleader/lead guitarist Isaac Mpofu. Africa\u2019s vibe ranges from anxious (\u201CAmanaz\u201D) to escapist (\u201CEasy Street\u201D) to straight-up pissed-off. On the \u201CHistory of Man,\u201D his voice whiskey-burned, his distorted guitar buzzing like swarming hornets, Mpofu indicts his species.\nThere\u2019s a darkness to Africa not found on any other Zamrock records, and a melancholy drifts throughout, specifically on Mpofu\u2019s more restrained \u201CKhala My Friend,\u201D which stands as an effective, bleak situation for the Zambian everyman, the average citizen of a struggling, new nation, who might have had relatives in conflict-torn countries on the horizon, who might have been struggling to find his next meal, who might have seen a bleaker future than his president promised.\nThen there\u2019s the clear Velvet Underground-influence on the nostalgic \u201CSunday Morning,\u201D which, as Kabwe recalls, was the first song written for the album, back in 1968, when Velvet Undergound and Nico was a new release - and the underground funk of \u201CMaking The Scene.\u201D The album also tackles traditional Zambian music and early-\u201860s rock \u2013 punctuated, of course by Kanyepa\u2019s wah-wah and Mpofu\u2019s fuzz guitars. But every time Amanaz get too deep, too violent, they come back with an accessible song and woo their listener back to the groove. \u201CGreen Apple\u201D is a civil song, featuring Kanyepa\u2019s sighing guitar.\nIt is a perfectly arranged album, from the dichotomy of Mpofu\u2019s and Kanyepa\u2019s lead and rhythm guitars, to the vocal harmonies, to the rhythm section\u2019s sense of space and time, which allows Africa\u2019s funk to build. Inexplicably, Africa was given two separate mixes and two separate presses: one version is dry, with the vocals and drums mixed loud, the other slathered in reverb, with the vocals and drums disappearing into the mix, and with the guitar solos mixed much louder. We\u2019ve presented them both here as they each have their appeal: it\u2019s up to the listener to pick the one he or she prefers. This is a highpoint of the Zamrock scene and we hope that this can be seen as its definitive reissue."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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