All We Need To Do Is Fight For One Another

From England to Jamaica via Belgium and Switzerland as The Anthronauts meet Lee 'Scratch' Perry in an Afrobeat Dub soundclash.

 

In the absence of Bandcamp Friday these past few months, I've been trawling for 'name your price' options instead, discovering bands, labels and compilations along the way. 

 

One such find a couple of weeks ago was NYP Records, operating out of Brussels and "offering the best global grooves from the 4 corners of the world". I ended up buying several digital compilations, including a few of their Global Riddims series and the (currently two) Mukambo Presents Global Afrobeat Movement collections.

According to their biog, The Anthronauts are a Zürich-based Afrobeat band brought together by their love for the music of Fela Kuti and Tony Allen. Active since 2016, The Anthronauts subsequently grew into a 10+ piece big band and released their debut self-titled album in September 2021.

 

Game Changer features South African singer Nongoma Ndlovu and preceded the album in August 2020, with the Lee 'Scratch' Perry Dubmix following on Christmas Day the same year. In truth this is one of Perry's, shall we say, 'light touch' jobs with an identical running time and structure to the original version, stripped back instrumentation and dub/echo effects throughout. Sometimes though, that's all you need.

The Lee 'Scratch' Perry Dubmix is available as a standalone track and also features on Mukambo Presents Global Afrobeat Movement Volume 2; both are available as 'name your price' downloads on Bandcamp. The latter offers up 21 tracks and is well worth a listen. I Come From People by Cameroonian/French actor Émil Abossolo-Mbo is another favourite.

 

I'm not tempted enough to extend to buying The Anthronauts' debut album but if you like what you hear, it's available on Bandcamp for seven Swiss Francs, less than seven and half pounds sterling (including VAT) in Great Britain, and throws in the Lee 'Scratch' Perry Dubmix as a free bonus track.