Witch “Lazy Bones!!” 1975/2021. Reissue on Now-Again Records, “earth orange” limited edition vinyl. Psychedelic garage rock from Zambia and amazing! The hype sticker on the album’s shrink-wrap sums up a review from Mojo: “Electrified by a diet of James Brown, The Stones and Deep Purple, Witch were the stadium-filling kings of 70’s Zamrock. Their third LP is a garagey masterpiece.” Zamrockers Witch (= We Intend To Cause Havoc) were the first Zambian group to record a commercial album (they had two self-released records, in ’72 and ’74, before they released Lazy Bones on the Zambezi label) and their sound is very 60’s/70’s Brit-hard rock goes prog with dashes of funk: “Look Out” has a killer Bo Diddly groove and is one of my favorites; it would have fit right in on Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets comp. Bass-forward “October Night” is super-funky, too, with a psychedelically-fuzzed freakout, plus maracas!  Also great are the record’s opener “Black Tears,” “Tooth Factory,” “Off Ma Boots” that gives me serious Kinks-on-acid vibes, and the title track “Lazy Bones” which could have been a hit single: it’s catchy as hell.

Witch reformed relatively recently, singer Emanyeo “Jagari” Chanda is the only remaining original member. Here’s their performance of “Lazy Bones” live in 2018.