Delve into st1:place>West Africa/st1:place>'s decade-delayed funky polyrhythmic take on psychedelia. From the Gold Coast to Cameroon, traversing the territory of Jimi Hendrix and James Brown, this album is an African assimilation of the psychedelic revolution - distorted, political, hallucinogenic, and, of course, danceable. Thousands of miles from the Summer of Love's utopian origins, yet somehow, not so far away...o:p>/o:p>
"Rock's Summer of Love dispersed utopian thoughts, wah-wah pedals and fuzzboxes around the world to places including st1:place>West Africa/st1:place>. There, in the late 1960's and early 1970's, bands added them to already simmering local concoctions of tradition and funk. "World Psychedelic Classics 3: Love's a Real Thing - The Funky Fuzzy Sounds of st1:place>West Africa/st1:place>" (Luaka Bop) collects a dozen sterling examples: Gambian garage-rock, modal Malian funk, a Guinean-Cuban guajira with a wah-wah lead and a proto-electro protest song by William Onyeabor from st1:country-region>st1:place>Nigeria/st1:place>/st1:country-region>. The equipment now sounds charmingly vintage, but the rhythms still jump."o:p>/o:p>
-Jon Pareles, Sundays Arts and Leisure "Playlist"