Various - The World Ends: Afro Rock & Psychedelia in 1970's Nigeria

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5...according to our Brett on Mon 26 Jul, 2010.

God, I can't keep up with all these amazing records from the likes of Soundway, Analogue Africa et al. As pleasant as it's been being fired a constant, concentrated blast of African goodness over the past year it can seem a bit overwhelming at times. I reckon I'll be catching up for years! What I really like about the labels doing this stuff is you can tell all their releases are genuine labours of love what with the excellent packaging and insane attention to detail in the liner notes and included imagery. This bumper set (this, the second of two volumes) is no exception and keeps the musical quality as high as ever as it focuses on the emergence of forms, following the beginning of Nigeria's civil war period, which borrow heavily from Western pop, funk and psychedelic rock while retaining the familiar incredible vitality, infectious energy and addictive rhythmic thrust of the area's traditional music. In a nutshell, it's just a ridiculously fun melting pot that I can't see failing to satisfy! Highest of recommendations - I could've told you that before I'd even opened the thing!

The World Ends is the latest title from Soundway Records showcasing a wave of guitar driven and psychedelic groups that sprung up in Nigeria during the early 1970s. Featuring 32 electrifying and funk laden grooves, this is the sound of a generation attempting to pick up the pieces after the devastation of the Nigerian civil war.
Spread over 2 CDs and 2 triple gatefold LPs, this bumper collection is brimming with youthful exuberance, fuzzed out guitar and cosmic organ vibes and owes much to the psychedelic sounds of Jim Morrison, Santana, Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane and James Brown.
As the summer of love was blossoming in London and San Francisco, Nigeria was imploding into civil war. Also known as the Biafran war of 1967, it was a grisly conflict taking over three million lives yet at the same time as the country was being pulled apart there was a new world beginning. The tracks featured represent a forgotten chapter in Nigeria’s musical history when the youth threw their varied morsels into the pot from hard rock to psychedelic soul when guitars were cherished instruments, symbolic of a new movement, when highlife and Afrobeat played second fiddle to ‘the beat’.