Spiritual War by Immy Owusu

Inspired by the Zamrock movement of the 1970s, Immy Owusu & Sensible J’s swirling psych/afro/funk EP ‘Spiritual War’ is a rowdy, boisterous selection of songs about injustice, insanity and the inanity of modern life in the burning house that is late capitalism. Owusu, a Ghanaian Australian singer and multi-instrumentalist bonded with South African Australian drummer, beatmaker and producer Sensible J (Sampa The Great, Cool Out Sun, Remi) over a shared love of the raw sounds of 70s African music, in particular Zamrock artists like Witch and Amanaz, and cooked up the EP in J’s iconic House Of Beige studio. Immy played guitar, percussion and miscellaneous instruments including the recorder as well as vocals while J provided drums, bass and keys and a roster of guests added vocals.

The title track kicks off with pumping drums and percussion. Spiritual War is a song about the worldwide war between the human spirit and apathy, decay and stagnation. It also rails against the West’s hand in the exploitation of Africa and likens today’s spiritual wars to the Pan African independence movement of the 1950’s where figures like Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah were targeted, deposed and exiled (or worse) by the CIA to destroy their vision of a unified African continent. Spiritual War also features Immy’s family friend and spiritual aunty Kuukua Aquah singing in Twi: ‘Berɛ na so’ (the time is coming) and features Aoteoroa rapper Mazbou Q on guest vocals.

Doom Elevator is another apocalypse jam, a song about “about a dream where I was in a house collapsing around me, but I couldn’t get out because the house was my own body.” A totally normal response to the elevating panic of living in a world going out of control with no way to get off the ride. Curly Hair is a bouncy piece of highlife with a banging beat about being the odd one out and Figure It Out is a dreamy escape from reality with falsetto vocals and spacious textures. Closing out the EP is a stripped back drumless edit of Spiritual War to give the listener some peace and rest.

Immy: “I met Sensible J on my first ever visit to Section 8 in Melbourne. He was spinning artists like The Funkees and Cymande, and up until that point in my young life living on the coast I had never met anyone interested in that kind of music. He was a dream producer of mine to work with ever since I became familiar with his work through Sampa the Great and Remi. We holed up in J’s studio ‘The House Of Beige’ in Somerville and started workshopping through a few ideas. While we were tracking through ideas we listened to highlife, Zamrock and afro-funk tracks with a little bit of Talking Heads and Sepultura mixed in.”

Spiritual War is released via Hopestreet Recordings on Friday 16th May.