The South Africa of the late 1970s was neither the right place nor time to launch a mixed-race punk band. Yet, following the student-inspired Soweto Uprising of 1976, it was also exactly the right conditions to foster a band like National Wake, one formed in an underground commune, and one whose very name exists in protest at the divisive, racist apartheid regime. Never before collected together, Light In The Attic is set to release National Wake's full body of work as Walk In Africa 1979–81.

Featured heavily in the Punk In Africa documentary, National Wake played punk, reggae and tropical funk, equally at home in the city's rock underground and the township nightclub circuit. Ivan Kadey started the band with two brothers, Gary and Punka Khoza. The three
were from different worlds – while Ivan was an outsider, a Jewish orphan born in the traditional Johannesburg immigrant neighborhood, Gary, Punka and their family were forcibly moved to the troubled township of Soweto under the apartheid regime. Later joined by guitarist Steve Moni, the whole band grew up against a backdrop of township unrest, social upheaval and suburban tedium that characterized apartheid-era South Africa.

National Wake released just one album, in 1981. It sold approximately 700 copies before being withdrawn under government pressure. The band subsequently disintegrated, but their influence could be traced in the racially mixed post-punk underground centered around Rockey Street in Johannesburg throughout the 1980s, their legacy transmitted through fanzines and underground cassette trading.

Sadly, Gary and Punka Khoza both passed away in their 40s. Kadey now works as an architect in Los Angeles, but his attention eventually turned back to the band as their legacy grew in the digital era, with the emergence of specialized music websites and Punk In Africa leading to their rediscovery. Czech State Radio memorably described the band as “perhaps the most dissident music scene of the 20th century: a multi-racial punk band in a fascist police state.”

In 2011, Kadey re-released the band’s self-titled album, but spoke about having more than 20 tracks that had never seen the light of day – until now. “All of these recordings put together they speak of the whole evolution of the band,” he has said. “From a sort of naive, almost belief that we could miraculously change everything to realizing what a struggle it was, and what the country was going through and what it would go through.”

• 2 x LP housed in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket with 20-pg book
• Vinyl cut by John Golden and pressed at RTI
• Scholarly liner notes by Punk In Africa director Keith Jones
• Unseen photos, flyers, and band ephemera
• First ever anthology

Review:

The National Wake's lone 1981 album, Walk in Africa, is a startling rock & roll document. Recorded by a multi-racial band in an increasingly tense and radicalized South Africa between 1979 and 1981, it offers the country's spirit at the time through punk and post-punk as they met reggae and township funk in a collision of rhythm, energy, and melody. The album embodies the best elements of Gang of Four's Enterta­inment, the Pop Group's Y, and the Clash's Sandi­nista!, as well ‘70s-era rowdy township street funk. Backing vocalist and rhythm guitarist Ivan Kadey, bassist Gary Khoza, drummer and backing vocalist Punka Khoza, and lead guitarist and vocalist Steve Moni whipped up a hell of a racket. This may be in the D.I.Y. spirit, but these cats can all play the hell out of their instruments. These aren't merely disaffected young people complaining, but four men in open rebellion, prophesying the end of a fascist, all-white power structure. The politics expressed here are all experiential, personal, shared, and therefore kinetic, not rote. (Perhaps that's why the government exerted enough pressure to have the album withdrawn after selling only 700 copies, and denied public permits for performances, leading to National Wake's eventual dissolution.) The music, though centered on what was happening in South Africa, has dated beautifully: its lyrics are perfectly suited to 21st century's culture of globalism and surveillance. It's music so innovative it could be made in the moment or in 20 years. Check the furious stuttering guitar and drum attack on opener “International News,” set against a frenetic, rippling bassline. Moni's voice rides just atop the fractured jittery funk: “They put a blanket over Soweto…I feel the bomb here it grows inside me/I feel the bomb here, is something wrong here?…” The title track is propelled by dubwise reggae but eludes the genre's constric­tions, as chunky, angular guitars, double-timed drums, a wandering bassline, and a serpentine sax solo wind through. In “Time and Place,” hooky pop-punk and township jive are driven by the rhythm section and hand percussion; in turn, they propel the guitars and vocals. The locking guitar grooves on “Mercenaries” are urgent and paranoid, but catchy as hell. “Wake of the Nation” melds edgy, wah-wah driven Afro-funk toward an anthemic yet fractured post-punk, and angrily prefaces the sound on the Talking Heads’ Speaking in Tongues. The thoroughly remastered reissue by Light in the Attic adds six bonus tracks. Of these, highlights are the house-burning punk funk of “Speed It Up,” the raucous live radio performance of “Black Punk Rockers,” and the infectious “Stratocaster.” The set includes exhaustive liners by Keith Jones (director of Punk in Africa), who interviews both Kadey and Moni – the Khoza brothers are now deceased – track by track analysis, full lyrics, and photos. The National Wake's Walk in Africa 1979–1981 is an authentic case of music as revelation. – Thom Jurek (All Music Guide)