RADIO
African Head Charge – Environmental Studies
Dub was never meant to stay still, and African Head Charge proved it. Environmental Studies takes the form apart and rebuilds it into something stranger, heavier and entirely its own.
By the early eighties On-U Sound had already established itself as one of the most unpredictable labels operating out of Britain. Adrian Sherwood’s restless production aesthetic drew in reggae musicians, post punk bands, and experimentalists of all kinds, often throwing them together in the same studio. Out of that melting pot came African Head Charge, a project led by percussionist Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah but shaped heavily by Sherwood’s vision. Environmental Studies, released in 1982, is one of the most striking statements from that period — a record that takes the language of dub and twists it until it sounds like something altogether new.
The first thing that hits you is the density. Dub traditionally works by stripping tracks back, creating space where echoes can bounce and bass can dominate. On Environmental Studies that principle is pushed further, but instead of empty space we are left with something murkier and more unsettling. Layers of percussion pile up, sometimes in loose polyrhythms, sometimes clattering across each other. Guitars are reduced to shards of sound, clipped and sent spinning through reverb. Synths and tape treatments appear suddenly, often without warning, before vanishing again. It feels unstable, as if the mix might fall apart at any moment.
That instability is part of the appeal. This is not reggae reworked for the dancefloor. It is dub as experiment, dub as a way of breaking down sound until you are left with fragments that still somehow hold together. Tracks such as “Stebeni’s Theme” or “Latin Temperament” carry grooves, but they are restless grooves, constantly shifting emphasis, refusing to settle. The result is music that sounds ritualistic without ever being traditional.
What makes Environmental Studies fascinating in hindsight is how far ahead of its time it feels. Listen closely and you can hear the roots of later developments in electronic music: the submerged soundscapes of Basic Channel, the fractured textures of experimental bass, even the industrial leanings of certain noise producers. African Head Charge were never chasing trends — they were working out their own ideas in the moment — but their willingness to distort dub into stranger shapes opened doors that many would walk through years later.
At the centre of it all is Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah’s percussion. His playing anchors the chaos, giving the record a human pulse even when the rest of the instrumentation seems determined to drift into abstraction. Sherwood’s production pushes it to the front but also distorts it, making it sound at times like ritual drumming captured through broken machinery. That tension between the organic and the mechanical is what defines the record.
Environmental Studies has never been an easy album to categorise, and that is exactly why it endures. It is not reggae in any straightforward sense. It is not post punk, though it shares the same appetite for tearing things apart. It is a record that feels like it belongs in several traditions at once while never being fully claimed by any of them. For crate diggers and listeners drawn to music that does not sit comfortably anywhere, it remains essential.
