Soil Of My Forefathers

Constantine Weir was one of the founding members of Galliano, one of the Acid Jazz group's front men and vocalists. A sharp dresser, spoken word poet and man about town. More recently, Constantine spent a decade in Senegal studying Sufism and when he returned to London used his experiences to record some tracks, releasing a series of vinyl only albums and singles under the name Yahya Constantine Weir. 

I found this one recently, Soil Of My Forefathers, and I hit play several times in succession- four and a half minutes long, Constantine speaking over an African Head Charge, Nayabinghi groove with acres of dub space. Righteous, wise, heavy musical treasure. 

Soil of My Forefathers is on an album that came out earlier this year, Certainty Beyond Logic. It was vinyl only apart from some minute long snippets at Bandcamp that give a flavour of the rest of the album- and those snippets sound really good, spiritual folk, Nyabinghi blues. There were only 200 copies of the vinyl pressed and by the looks of it, they've all long since sold out and the three copies currently on Discogs are priced starting at £60. Re- issue please Constantine?

In 2024 Galliano reconvened with an album- Halfway Somewhere- and a 7" single called Cabin Fever that echoed Andrew Weatherall's famous Skunk Funk remixes, The Clash, dub, On U Sound, New Age Steppers and Gil Scott Heron. The expanded version of Halfway Somewhere included a dub version of Cabin Fever that's really hits the late July spot.