Various

Welcome To Zamrock Vol. 1 & Vol. 2

NOW-AGAIN. CD/DL/LP Two volumes offer definitive overview of Zambian rock’s rise against all odds.

As part of Zambia’s ’60s drive towards independence President Kenneth Kaunda passed a law ensuring 95 per cent of music on the radio was of Zambian origin. A policy intended as a celebration of local music warped into a fuzzy, freewheeling West vs African fusion amid the poverty, unrest and ruinous economic despair of 1973/1974’s oil crisis as the likes of Musi-O-Tunya, Peace, W.I.T.C.H., Amanaz and Paul Ngozi radically repurposed James Brown and Jimi Hendrix’s blueprints to their own whacked-out ends. Zamrock’s rapid rise was only matched by its speedy decline, hastened by rampant piracy; a fleeting movement that ensured Now-Again’s chief archivist Egon Alapatt had to dig hard and dig clever to unearth these rough diamonds. The result is an unprecedented treasure trove.