Headonix

If you knew and loved Fun-Da-Mental, the so-called ‘Asian Public Enemy’, the agit-popping global prog-punk collective that cut a swathe through the UK and the world from the 90s on, then you knew Dave Watts. The group's anti-racist sentiment and political savvy were embodied by its explosive frontman, who has maintained his righteous rage as genre-bending DJ D.WattsRiot and now, as KingL Man, a Canary Islands-based beats-maker and disrupter. It's no wonder, then, that debut album Headonix feels like a sucker punch, its ten tracks pulsing with features by artists including Senegalese vocalists Sidi IB and Ibrahima El Latigazo, both of whom did time in a Tenerife migrant holding centre, and Mame Samba, whose vocals on the track ‘Guidance & Healing’ offer precisely that.

Traditional music including Egyptian horns and Astatke-style Ethio-jazz works with a band on violin, percussion, drums and bass guitar deployed by the late, legendary Nick ‘Count Dubulah’ Page. Canadian writer/poet Troy Harkin rails against corporate greed on ‘Monsanto’; Watts tells it like it is over samples and glitchy electronics on ‘Mike Input at Loud Speakers Corner’; singer Zeeteah lifts the rippling, ambient ‘Assuage No 9’ into the stratosphere. Richly textured, clear in its message and valid in its anger, this is a work with something to say.