Pool Of Sound - Sankofa

 

An early picture from 2012

Liverpool psych-rock outfit 'Sankofa', with a settled line up of Stephen Wall on vocals and guitar, Joel Whitehead on lead guitar, Josh Perry on drums and Daniel Allen on bass, were featured in the Liverpool Echo's 'Buzz Band of the Week' by Peter Guy in 2015. "The first time we stumbled across Liverpool's Sankofa was way back in 2011. A frazzled freak-beat jam band they melded the freewheelin' spirit of Wishbone Ash, Crazy Horse and any number of bands making a racket on The Old Grey Whistle Test. Their artwork, designed by John Van Hamersveld (the man behind The Stones' Exile on Main Street and The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour) lent itself to their sprawling noise which was perfectly suited to early gigs in The Zanizibar, District and The Epstein Theatre. The band's debut release, on Liverpool-based independant wax-only label Eighties Vinyl Records saw them bag solid live slots in the city, however a series of line up changes and crucially a need to hone their cavernous sound into something tighter and more progressive ear-marked them as genuine ones to watch. Fast-forward to November 2014, and the band turned a corner with their most compact, and finest, track to date - Grasp; an effervescent burst of cyclical Autumnal Americana. It's a truly beautiful song with an emotive video masterfully shot by regular collaborator Dan Hewitson."

Apart from Daniel, the others all went to school together, but Stephen and Joel didn't hang around with Josh because he was a goth! Their band name is derived from a Ghanaian myth meaning to reach back into the past and bring something into the present.

 

At The Kazimier in 2015 music blog Getintothis were there, "we have little time to draw breath before the garage rock anthems of 'Sankofa' start to ring out. The band have changed since I last saw them, they play with more bite. Not necessarily heavier, but with the fuzz pedals in full flow, heads start to nod as for the first time in the night a band is conceivably loud. This is a band with incredible song-writing ability, they move with ease throughout the set, equal parts indie pop and early black rebel motorcycle club. Drummer Josh Perry’s stick work is incredibly impressive as the quartet, burned through the set. As vocalist Stephen Walls sister joins them onstage for the final few tracks of the night, they close with another array of guitar pop mastery set to make them firm favourites for everyone in attendance. It felt like the set was over far to quick as they took little time to rest or recover, don’t blink or you’ll have missed your favourite song, don’t pop outside or the set will be over. An insanely powerful punk rock work ethic displayed by such an incredible emerging artist."

Their last single was 'Into The Wild' in 2017 and was reviewed, "Intoxicatingly beckoned by their satanic majesties into the subterranean, the bewitching new single from the reputable morbidly curious Liverpool band Sankofa, 'Into The Wild', is a sassy, knowing two-geared esoteric augur. Following hot on the heels of their last, and equally daemonic psych single, 'All The While', ahead of the band’s debut album (released later this year), this entrancing incandescent liquid lightshow video adorned doom-monger shifts from a malady of Crime And The City Solution style tremolo twanged gothic country, The Doors and The Creeps, to a final unyielding, heavy rock guitar crescendo. In case you missed the subtle hints and miasma, both sonically and lyrically, the cover art can’t help but give you nightmares, alluding as it does to very real metaphors of puritanical regimes and their witch-hunts." - Monolith Cocktail. 

see also:- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2023/07/pool-of-sound-megan-louise.html