Demon Fuzz

LP version. Afreaka! is the only album Demon Fuzz released while the band was active. It was recorded over the summer of 1970 and issued that November by Dawn, the progressive imprint of Pye Records. The group had formed in England in 1968 among musicians who had come to Britain from Caribbean Commonwealth countries. They began as a soul act, until the music they heard on a trip to Morocco pushed them towards longer forms and heavier percussion. The record sits between horn-driven funk, jazz-rock and psychedelic soul, a mix few British bands of the period tried. Janus Records licensed it for the United States, and Billboard picked it as a four-star selection in June 1971.

All the arrangements are by Paddy Corea, who plays tenor and soprano saxophone, flute and congas. Around him are Ray Rhoden on organ and piano, W. Raphael Joseph on guitar, Sleepy Jack Joseph on bass and Steven John on drums, with trombone, extra congas and the voice of Smokey Adams. Barry Murray produced, with Geoff Calver and Howard Barrow engineering. The record holds just five long tracks, and the original sleeve got both their order and their writing credits wrong. Past, Present And Future, by Rhoden and Joseph, opens side one at almost ten minutes. Disillusioned Man is the shortest piece, and Another Country takes up the rest of the side. Side two pairs Hymn To Mother Earth with Mercy (Variation No. 1), over nine minutes of Corea's arranging. Thom Jurek's AllMusic review describes the album as "a wild mash of Afro-Latin funk, breakbeats, tripped-out soul, jazz fusion, and psychedelic journeying". It has long circulated among DJs and samplers, and Gilles Peterson has championed the band for years. The same year Dawn issued a maxi-single led by their take on Screamin' Jay Hawkins's I Put A Spell On You. A second album, Roots And Offshoots, appeared on the group's own label in 1976, after they had split.

This Music On Vinyl edition (MOVLP1935), licensed from BMG, is pressed on 180 gram vinyl and was sourced from 96kHz/24-bit digital files of the original masters.