A Trip to Bolgatanga is the first album in 12 years from formerly prolific dub collective African Head Charge. Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah, the veteran band’s leader, has relocated to Bolgatanga, a Ghanaian town famed for its craftwork. Inspired by his new surroundings, the vocalist-percussionist has completed 10 new songs in collaboration with On-U production legend Adrian Sherwood.
It’s mostly unexceptional, compared with the band’s glory days of the 1980s, although Noah and Sherwood bring sufficient chemistry to the lab to justify return. The title track is a mellow beauty, piano interplaying with percussion and mournful horns, while gorgeously loping Passing Clouds is more Womad than Peter Gabriel in a kaftan.
Many familiar UK dub and reggae names contribute, such as Skip McDonald, Ghetto Priest and Doug Wimbish. Yet the star of the show is Noah’s mesmerising hand drumming, especially on the headspinning Microdosing – although, like many other tracks it would be better running longer, to let the rhythms envelop and entrance you.
While masterfully engineered as always, the album is too polite, lacking the monstrous, alien menace of the band’s bassier efforts. It’s an album that could do with a dub treatment.
