In the 22^nd Century, Africa becomes to Asia what Asia is to America today, an ambitious and go-getting continent hungry to make its mark in this planet and beyond. Several foundational legends of the new pan-African identity underpin the development of its psychedelic space program – they include the re-appropriation of global dance culture (that has to be broadcasted through custom-made bass-boosted telco satellites), and the political will to realise the outer-worldly aspirations of the free jazz & dub reggae diaspora.

Instead of wasting time pissing around in the outskirts of Terra, the African Space Program goes mega from the get-go. The Bambaata I (pictured above) hosts a self-sustaining habitat and a hundred zionite families to colonise fertile planets outside of this tedious galaxy.  I won’t tell you about their journey, I don’t have the space or the words. But picture this: Picture Battlestar Galactica’s exodus, replace the naff Judaeo-Christian mythology with awesomely animistic vibes, graffiti voodoo loa over Starbuck’s mandala, dress the Zylons up in Rammellzee monster outfits and make them the masters of electro. All through a neon wormhole that transforms man into starchild, riding a hyperspace bass wave to fulfil Lee Perry’s unfuckwithable prophecy.

Voltage Black – The Volcano Laughing

Voltage Black’s The Volcano Laughing throws it all into the mix to keep our spacefaring exiles physically exercised & healthy during their pan-galactic transitions, bombastic shangaanized post-Rustie epic electro-boogie pumps the gravity levels up every time. Go to the soundcloud for more.

Having anticipated what will be, let us yearn for what wasn’t, a branching in modern history where the French didn’t join the European Space Flight Program with its ambition-sapping political chip bargaining, but instead decided to strike for the cosmos on their own using the funds that (in this alternative history) weren’t invested in the development of Minitel.

We can but imagine wistfully what the Gallic civilisation that, at the height of its synthetic, sci-fi hallucinatory powers gave us Magma, Jarre, Massiera, Vannier, Fevre, Goraguer, Laloux or Moebius could have accomplished in the wild black yonder beyond.

We would switch BBC 2 on, and watch a Horizon documentary populated by graduates from all sorts of awesome Écoles supérieures designing silver machines in the laboratories of impossible technopoles, watch polo-necked, Gauloises chain-smoking theoretical physicists deconstruct the philosophical implications of ‘Contact’ (cue this),  stare into cosmic wonders narrated by a gravelly-voiced crooner. All of this soundtracked by the ever-awesome Steve Moore.

Steve Moore – Primitive Neural Pathways

Primitive Neural Pathways is included in the double CD reissue of Primitive Neural Pathways/Valvaara out-of-print LPs undertaken by Static Caravan.

Epilogue -
This post is tagged with Static Caravan Voltage