Demon Fuzz - Afreaka!

Let’s get the facts straight, a mainstream soul band is not my cup of tea. But in retrospect in the underground scene in England at the beginning of 1970, musical composer and percussionist, Paddy Corea, keyboardist Ray Rhoden, lead vocalist Smokey Adams, bassist “Sleepy” Jack Joseph, drummer Stephen John, guitarist Waldron Joseph, and trombonist Clarence “Brooms” Crossdale, this seven piece band had a huge following in the city of Morocco in 1968 as they became a huge following as they became of the weirdest named Demon Fuzz. “After we finished with Morocco and came back to England” said Paddy Corea during an early interview, “We were still using the Soul sound in our act, but we put more of our progressive numbers into it.” Sharing a bill during the Hollywood Music Festival in Newcastle along with Family, Traffic, and the Grateful Dead, they were signed by Dawn Records, as they released their only album in September, 1970. Afreaka! had been famously today in the future been sampled by club DJs in the hip-hop universe and had been out of print for quite a while and has been the eBay collective vinyl section that goes up from $60.49 to $81.00 and from all bidding websites that want to get their hands on this lost classic including a bizarre cover of a wrestler that is very Kinnikuman style in a twisted African way!
But here’s the good news, the album finally got the Remastered treatment it deserves in 2009 done by Esoteric Recordings – the sister of Cherry Records and the chief of the Esoteric label, Mark Powell. A record collector of all record collectors, Powell’s hope to give the album the credit it deserves for its fans of Soul, Latin Rock, and Psychedelic Soul and bring it back to life in print. For all of its ‘late ‘60s soul and Latin Rock kings including The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Sly and the Family Stone, and the Original Santana’s first two albums. If the influences of heavy guitars and the homage’s to Jimi Hendrix meets Proto-Punk taste of Miles Davis gone Fusion of this 9-minute jazz garage rock soul Funkadelic groove of Past, Present, and Future, the Anti-War protest and the Civil Rights issue including a touch of the blaxploitation movies of the golden-era of the early ‘70s that could have been a part on the Superfly or The Mack soundtrack of Disillusioned Man and the twisted jumble of African’s own touch of Soul Rock in the early ‘70s of the Super Eagles meets Osibasa meets Assagai meets Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo De Contou Dahomey on Another Country which is the beginning of early DJ on the drum beats and the organ going psychedelia on your ass!
If that weren’t enough, then look out for the 8-minute sinister taste of the Jethro Tull-type of mourning brunch on Hymn To Mother Earth which starts off with Paddy doing this brilliant solo on the flute while the organ is going up in the sky including a terrific bass line and the vocals come in as if they were in a psychedelic church waiting for their gods to give them 100% credit and then it becomes a Motown-like meets dynamic blues rock touch throughout the song and one of those songs that wished it could have been a single on the Dawn label but never saw the light of day. The North African homage is growing like a chanting funeral on the finale with Mercy (Variation No. 1) a very darker number that starts out like an African tribe with the organ and the sax doing a sneering solo and then it becomes ala Jazz Fusion from beginning to end which will have your mouth watering to hear more of this unbelievable band that were way ahead of their time and its worth the wait to hear instead of today’s bullshit we hear on the fucking radio today. In 2025, this album will be played throughout the entire solar system and groovin’ forever!