And now for something really special. This is a feature length film featuring international concert performances and backstage footage from the first 4 years of Anthony Joseph & the Spasm Band. Excuse the quality, it had to be compressed so you could stream the entire film.
Enjoy.
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The Spasm Band - personnel and recordings
PERSONNEL
The Spasm Band L-R Paul Brett - Irons, snare, cymbals, Andrew John - Bass, Colin Webster - Tenor & Alto Sax, Flute, Anthony Joseph - vocals, poetry, Paul Zimmerman - Djembe, Congas, Craig 'Cigar' Tamlin - Quica, conch shells, misc percussion, Christain Arcucci - Guitar. Photo : Maya
Produced by Antoine Rajon and recorded in Meudon, France, 2008.
REVIEWS
Some seriously raw funk. Joseph intones funny, funky Gil Scott Heron-ish rhymes as his Spasm band - featuring tenor sax, wah wah guitar, bass and bongos produces a remarkable racket, flirting with Ethiopian Jazz, Nigerian afrobeat and James Brown's garage funk.
- Uncut Magazine
Few lecturers at London University can be as rowdily funky as Anthony Joseph. Backed by squawking free-jazz and supercharged percussion, the Trinidadian poet and academic struts, bawls and howls his way through his latest works – part Voodoo priest, part prize-fighter. If his magic-realist rants are hard to follow, there's something of the modern urban Rimbaud in this album's visionary energy.
Mark Hudson - The Telegraph
The first thing that hits you is the funk, the throbbing urban grooves, taut, almost militant 70’s funk that drifts into the stirring power of spiritual and free jazz, even Afrobeat or bizarrely enough Calypso music. And then we meet Anthony Joseph. He is a poet. But you wouldn’t know it. He comes across like a New Orleans preacher, loud, proud, rousing, over the sweat and the sin of the music. His delivery is somewhere between Martin Luther King Jnr and Jimi Hendrix, these incredibly vivid spiritual street stories that build and swell with the music. Make no mistake he’s not thumbing earnestly through a dog eared excercise book, he’ll wail and sing, writhe and live the music. These are songs, not poetry put to music, where the music can just flow on instrumentally for long periods before Joseph will pop up with his unique wordplays. Jospeh is Trinidadian, based England, he even lectures in creative writing there, though it’s his super cool 7 piece band with horns, hand drums, wah guitar, organs and shakers that really takes this out of the classroom. They’ve really transcended the spoken word medium here, creating the kind of obscure rare groove record that crate diggers would go mad for if it was made thirty five years ago, like it sounds like it should have.
Bob Baker Fish
An intensely challenging, yet gloriously rewarding volume of spiritual tales. A place where the parables, pitfalls, redemption and affirmation of life are rapped-chanted-sung-slam-stitched together with Voodoo funk, Rastafarian revelation, bayou blues, calypso rhythms and unbridled free jazz movement
- Shook Magazine
Read the rest of this review at www.shook.fm
Warm, elegant and accomplished, this new offering reunites the manifold musical identities of the African diaspora over twelve tracks. Here, spoken word lyrics, inspired horns and layered grooves conjure up some sacred syncretic dreams, evoking fabled free spirits like Gil Scott-Heron or The Last Poets. Sincerity shines through, and this sharp wordsmith and his impeccable Spasm Band touch the motherlode on this trip to the heart of Great Black Music.
- Mondomix
Full review at www.mondomix.com
Ce fils de "tête d'oiseau" est bien loin d'en avoir la cervelle stupide (d'un oiseau, pas de son père) et avant d'arriver sur nos terres de France avec cet album, le garçon a pas mal rouler sa bosse outre manche. Arrivé à Londres au début des années 90 après avoir quitté sa terre natale de Trinidad, Anthony Joseph est en effet l'auteur d'un précédent album mais aussi de recueils de poésies et d'un roman, encore jamais traduits dans notre langue pour le moment mais dont le succès en Angleterre n'est pas à prouver. Full review at http://www.froggydelight.com/article-6394-Anthony_Joseph_and_the_Spasm_Band.html
LA DIABLESSE, July 2008 limited 12" ft Keziah Jones & Joseph Bowie on Heavenly Sweetness! Tracklist Side 1 - Vero ft Keziah Jones Side 2 - 1. Poverty is Hell 2. Robberman ft Joe Bowie
The spoken word revelation of the year. Spiritual and surreal.
- Vibrations Magazine, France
Funky grooves and righteous poetry -- a contemporary album, but one that takes us back to the hip 70s work of artists like Gil Scott-Heron or Wanda Robinson! Words are by Anthony Joseph, who's got a spoken, slightly-sung style that's really compelling -- backed with rhythms that are more in a jazz funk mode overall -- played by the Spasm Band on flute, tenor, guitar, bass, and lots of rootsy percussion -- the last of which serves to give the tracks an earthy, organic quality that surprisingly timeless, given the recent date of the set! - Dusty Groove
Rousing, provocative and times a little scary in his observations and assassinations of regular folk, Joseph’s spoken word monologues are delivered in bold, proud and often animated tones. Up close, they are actually harsh, acute tomes from leftfield (see the diseases befalling the central characters of ‘Wallerfield’). Delivered with a misleadingly blasé attitude, Joseph communicates with a flow that without being a breathless stream of conscience, manages to twist ordinary words into something more sinister and almost supernatural. Jose ph’s bluesyyet shady band plays along in the background with suitable rustic minimalism. - One Week To Live
Joseph is a fiery and capable performer and commands the unconditional attention of the listener like his influences Gil Scott Heron and Fela Kuti. This is an imaginative trip into the mind of a mystic. - Scott C. -www.montrealmirror.com
Lyrically this is an intense album which requires your full attention. Daydream for a second and you'll be lost, then you're back to the rewind button, to start again. Driving in whilst listening to this became rather fun and games because I must have listened to this four times over. The jazz soundtrack by The Spasm Band is just perfect, with a real feel of the 70s and Strata-East or Impulse classics, to ensure this is essential for your collection."
- Simon Harrison, Basic Soul
Spoken word backed by a wild Afro-Carribean rhythm-jazz to produce a sound reminiscent of Gil Scott-Heron while having the slightly unhinged quality of Saul Williams or the Art Ensemble of Chicago. OK, it sounds like it was recorded thirty years ago and the lyrics sometimes seem no more than a kind of tripped-out, unravelling stream-of-consciousness, but that's exactly why we like it.
- www.thecrackmagazine.com
The music has a tribal Afro-jazz push to it that dictates the speed of fluency of Jospeh’s delivery with hypnotic dedication.
- www.subba-cultcha.com
Dans cet album d'Anthony Joseph,puissant autant qu'émouvant, on sera attentif aux beaux textes (intégralement repris sur un feuillet) allusifs, métaphoriques, surréalisants, parfois ouverts à des mondes anciens, mais chaque fois relus et emmêlés au présent, à la voix vibrante et chaleureuse, et au phrasé modulant et subtil qui les porte. - La Médiathèque
The album is in stores now!! Or get it from Amazon
SPIRIT LASH-Heavenly Sweetness, 2006
The first Spasm Band 12" single Spirit Lash, still available but hard to find!
Tracklist
a. Buddha 6.54
b. Bo Nuggy 10.06
REVIEWS
Spirit Lash is the first 12" of the Spasm band and its leader/poet Anthony Joseph. A cult figure of the spoken word scene in the UK, Anthony has just released this month an acclaimed poetic novel 'the African origins of UFOs''. His music is a deep afro-carribean funky trance influenced by the rhythms of his nativeland Trinidad and the deep spirited jazz of the 70S. You will hear echoes of dub poets, Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Fela, Sun Ra cosmic visions, but the Spasm band has definitely a sound of its own . Tip!
Rush Hour, Amsterdam
By now, you should know that any track called ‘Buddha’ gets us excited.
But it still has to answer a higher calling. Thankfully, it does as it finds the band somewhere between James Blood Ulmer and James Chance on an Afro trip with Mark Murphy. Really, it’s that good! This is going to be in my box until it is as big a hit as ‘The Creator Has A Master Plan’.
It’s that time of year where we start think about awards and the like and Heavenly Sweetness and ‘Spirit Lash’ is bombing into the top ten, Be warned, there is nothing spasmodic about this band’s pure African spiritual jazz brilliance. Gerry Hectic - Fly.co.uk
Very hip work from jazz poet Anthony Joseph -- 2 tracks that are issued here on 12" single, but which sound like righteous jazz numbers from many years past! Both numbers feature Joseph's words mixed with hip instrumental backings from a combo that includes tenor, flute, guitar, and lots of percussion -- often used in rootsy ways that give the tracks a very organic, almost improvised feel -- like lost gems from the New York loft jazz years, or some of the later generations of the downtown scene! Dusty Groove, Chicago
