Used-Bin Bargains: Uganda

With Vice's recent reissuing frenzy of Boredoms here in the US, we thought it might be a good time to look back this week into a corner of the late-60s Jap-psych phenomenon that has only recently re-emerged.













Uganda - Pigmy (originally released 1972; Shadoks re-release 2006(?))

Uganda - Uganda / Shadoks

Like much of the rest of Africa, Uganda was in a period of serious unrest in 1972. Idi Amin (the "Last King of Scotland" or, as he preferred, "His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular") had become another name in a growing list of fledgling African rulers ascending from the hangover of the UK's post-colonial withdrawal. After a military coup in 1971, Amin was now hunting down former president Milton Obote and forcing over 50,000 Asians into exile following a mere dream of his.

I give this draining history lesson as an intro because, in listening to Akira Ishikawa's forays into African tribal music with Uganda, one feels the whole calamity not just of the acid-psych movement of the late 1960s but the chaos surrounding the easing in of the new decade and the conflict associated with it in Africa also. A first listen to this four-song LP (of which, it is suspected by German reissue magnate Shadoks, only 400 copies were pressed) gives away the tribal rhythms that have experienced something of a renaissance with everything from the cowbell madness of punk-funk to the surprising success of the Congotronics series. Percussion is, it seems, all the rage these days. This is the strong-suit of Uganda.

As expected, information is scant. But more and more of these rarities are coming to light thanks to the overdue triumphs of Boris, Acid Mothers Temple and Boredoms. Clearly these bands have a root in what was going on nearly four decades ago, but the massive effort to uncover what was going on in Japan around this time still leaves little in the way of biographical profiles or recording histories. Les Rallizes Denudes could be the posterchildren for this movement to mine the depths of obscurity, but everybody from the Rallizes to San Ul-Lim to Foodbrain is garnering attention. You know this. So we try to piece the great Japanese psych-rock puzzle together ourselves, and though most of the Japanese acid bands were vaguely related to one another, Ishikawa had few tenuous connections before he wandered off into the African bush: He worked primarily as a solo artist (Drum Yagi Bushi came out the year before Uganda) and only shares a name with the Djarma guitarist. Perhaps he is better known for his Electrum venture with Count Buffalos in 1970. The Uganda experiment coupled him with Love Live Life +1 acid guitarist Kimio Mizutani, who is far more widely known. Most notable among his achievements is People's potentially life-altering masterpiece Buddha Meet Rock in 1971.

Both of these men were already dabbling in prog with jazz fusion and acid excess by '72, but Uganda was a new way of channeling the energy. It was also another excuse to keep the creative juices flowing via drug intake... But the grass they were smoking in Uganda must've passed through customs unnoticed: "Pigmy" is the concluding track from the album but, as you can hear, Ishikawa's composing was aided by the competent playing of a number of hired guns back in Japan under the influence of the Masai (not Masia) tribesmen. Back in Africa, Ishikawa was studying music with them; no one is really sure how long he was gone or where he was studying. It's clear that their percussion techniques did a number on him though, because "Na Tu Penda Sana" is one of the most awesome percussion solos committed to vinyl during the period. For half of its nine minutes, Mizutani puts his guitar down and lets Ishikawa get to it. Chronologically preceding it is the thundering 11-minute opener "Wanyama Na Mapambazuko," which remains the real centerpiece even as it sits at the top of the order. Representing one extreme of the Uganda sound, "Wanyama Na Mapambazuko" (which has to mean something fun in Japanese, though I can't be sure) builds slowly and then freaks out as good as any Super Roots series ever did before abruptly coming to a halt and then easing into "Na Tu Penda Sana," the kraut-child tinkler-gone-mindflaying of "Vita," and the standard-by-comparison "Pigmy." "Pigmy" represents the other extreme of Uganda's sound, a creative and totally listenable psych-rock number that would settle in comfortably but almost completely unnoticed on a Grade A psych mix CD. In short: It's good. Really good.

Recorded in glorious quadraphonic sound, this album was privately pressed and no one is sure who did it. Even still, the legacy of the anonymous Masai tribesmen Ishikawa worked with in the months leading up to Uganda remains. A good thing, too: Inadvertantly, Uganda is not just a one-off band stemming from the fruitful grounds of Japan's early-1970s Japan. This is a snapshot of two nations juxtaposed to one another: Japan on the rise, Uganda in descent. In one of the most critical junctures of its history, the pearl of Africa may have never been captured better.