Asian Dub Foundation’s proudly release the 21st Anniversary Reissue of Rafi’s Revenge 22
Asian Dub Foundation
announce
Rafi’s Revenge
March 22nd
London Records
& launch show in London
“The best rock’n’roll band on the planet”*
On 22nd March London Records proudly reissue Asian Dub Foundation’s revolutionary studio album, Rafi’s Revenge.
Rafi’s Revenge will be released on 2CDs and double white vinyl. The 2CD edition features the original 12 songs, plus a second CD titled ‘Under The Influence (Adrian Sherwood’s Selection Of Rare, Unheard & Mastered Tracks).
Watch the trailer here
To coincide with the reissue of Rafi’s Revenge Asian Dub Foundation play a show at the Rich Mix in London on Thursday 28th March.
Rafi’s Revenge originally peaked at number 20 on the UK Albums Chart and was shortlisted for the 1998 Mercury Music Prize, with Bobby Gillespie hailing them at the time as “the best live act in Britain”.
Upon original release the NME hailed Asian Dub Foundation as “the most important band in Britain” as did the Sunday Times calling them “the most exciting band in Britain right now, whatever the context”, while the Melody Maker said discovering Rafi’s Revenge is like “finding ice-cold vain in the middle of the Kalahari. No not just good, fucking brilliant” This album is a masterpiece and this re-issue deserves your attention.
‘By the time they recorded Rafi’s Revenge in 1998, Asian Dub Foundation were primed to explode. Having initially emerged from East London’s grassroots Community Music project as a largely studio-based collective, the band had galvanised themselves into a riotously exciting touring machine by the late Nineties. Their extraordinary live shows around this period were electrifying to witness, kinetic and dynamic, incendiary and euphoric, confrontational yet celebratory. For sheer roof-raising energy, they were unrivalled.
After signing a new deal with London Records, ADF drew on the experience of their exhilarating live shows to rework their 1997 French release R.A.F.I. into a much richer, deeper, more sonically ambitious album. Rafi’s Revenge was the result: a kaleidoscopic mash-up of jungle breakbeats, industrial dub, London-rooted hip-hop, sci-fi punk, drum’n’bass, soundsystem reggae, bhangra, free jazz, techno, sampled Indian classical instruments, funky surf guitar and swashbuckling spaghetti western attitude. It sounded like a head-on collision between the past, present and future of music. Two decades later, it still does.
Rafi’s Revenge arrived in an era foolishly branded “the end of history”, that brief decade of relative peace between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the world-shaking events of 9/11. With hindsight, of course, dark stormclouds were already gathering. Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front was on the rise in France, mirrored by the British National Party and other fascist movements across Europe. India and Pakistan were engaged in escalating nuclear brinkmanship. Meanwhile, in Westminster, Tony Blair was still enjoying his honeymoon period before the Iraq War tarnished his legacy forever. Things could only get bitter.
Despite being defiant outsiders to the pop mainstream, ADF were starting to earn crossover success by the late Nineties, attracting famous fans and rapturous reviews. Rafi’s Revenge would become their first Top 20 album, and even made the shortlist of Britain’s prestigious Mercury Music Prize. All the same, the band naturally resisted media attempts to co-opt them as figureheads of some spurious new “Asian underground”, as heirs to the rebel-rock sound of The Clash, as British cousins to Rage Against the Machine, and so on.
However true these cosmetic comparisons may have seemed, ADF were simply too rich and complex a beast a mix to pin down with such limiting labels. Guitarist and programmer Steve “Chandrasonic” Savale, turntable and sample maestro John Pandit, electronics manipulator Sanjay “Sun-J” Taylor , bass guitarist and programmer Aniruddha “Doctor” Das, and livewire teenage vocalist Deeder “Master D” Zaman were a pan-generational, multi-faith collective all schooled in different musical traditions. Indeed, this very diversity was one of their key strengths, and remains so today.
ADF have evolved enormously over the last two decades, of course, but their breakthrough album remains a fascinating chapter in the real, complex, unwritten history of Britpop. Expanded and enlarged for this anniversary edition, these multi-layered musical treasures still dazzle and delight with their grandiose ambition and riotous energy. Twenty years later, Rafi’s Revenge is still a dish best served smoking hot.’ **
**edited sleeve notes written by Stephen Dalton
Watch the video for Buzzin here
Rafi’s Revenge formats:
CD1.
1. Naxalite
2. Buzzin
3. Black White
4. Assassin”
5. Hypocrite
6. Charge
7. Free Satpal Ram
8. Dub Mentality
9. Culture Move
10. Operation Eagle Lie
11. Change
12. Tribute to John Stevens
CD2. Under The Influence (Adrian Sherwood’s Selection Of Rare, Unheard & Mastered Tracks)
1. Intro
2. Real Areas For Investigation
3. Culture Move(Audio Active Pusher Sound Mix)
4. Naxalite(Adrian Sherwood Mad Scientist Dub Mix)
5. Modern Apprentice
6. Digital Underclass
7. Dub Mentality
8. Buzzin(Dylan Rhymes remix)
9. Hypocrite
10. Charge(Live)
11. Free Satpal Ram(Russell Simmins remix)
Catalogue number: LMS5521229
Bar Code : 5060555212292
Rafi’s Revenge double white vinyl album
Side A.
Naxalite
Buzzin
Black White
Side B
Assassin
Hypocrite
Charge
Side C
Free Satpal Ram
Dub Mentality
Culture Move
Side D
Operation Eagle Lie
Change
Tribute to John Stevens
Catalogue number LMS5521230
Bar Code 5060555212308
To pre order Rafi’s Revenge go to: http://smarturl.it/rafisrevenge21
To purchase tickets the Rich Mix in London on 28th March go to : https://richmix.org.uk/events/asian-dub-foundation-rafis-revenge-live
http://asiandubfoundation.com/site/
https://twitter.com/ADFofficial