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Saturday, March 29, 2008

Playlist - 29th March 2008

Audio

Dimension X - The Martian Chronicles - KML
Kode 9 and the Space Ape - Konfusion - Hyperdub
Su Hart - Zombie Jamboree - March Hare Music
David A. Jaycock - There be Killer Bees in Them There Trees - Red Deer Club
George Thomas and the Owls - On a Starry Night - Red Deer Club
Chandeliers - Mr Electric - Pickled Egg
The Emperor Machine - Slap on - DC Recordings
Holy F*** - Lovely Allen - Young Turks
Chatham County Line - Let it Rock - Yep Roc

Chariots of Wire Race 2

Scotty - Musical Chariot – Crystal
Keith & Tex - Don’t Look Back – Crystal
The Crystalites - The Overtaker –
The Crystalites - The Overtaker Version - Derrick’s One Stop Blank
Derrick Harriott – The Loser – Crystal
Augustus Pablo - Bells Of Death –
The Crystalites – Version Two – Move & Groove
Augustus Pablo - Sesame Street – Scotty/Bells Of Death – Crystal
The Crystalites - Call Me Trinity -
The Crystalites – Trinity Version - Crystal
Scotty – Monkey Drop – Song Bird
Scotty - Count The Tears –
Scotty – Count The Skank – Scotty *Produced by Dave ‘Scotty’ Scott and distributed by Derrick’s One Stop
Tonight – Rusty Dusty
Pablo & Fay - Bedroom Mazurka –
The Crystalites – Version Two - Randy’s
King Tubby - Concentration – Dennis Brown/Concentration Version – Trojan
Horace Andy - Lonely Woman
Horace Andy – Version – Move & Groove
Keith & Tex – Lonely Man – Stop That Train – Crystal
Derrick Harriott - Dancing The Reggae –
Derrick Harriott - Instrumental Version – Wildflower

Selected by Harry Hawke

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Playlist - 22nd March 2008

Lee Perry - Mikey Dread at the Mantrols
The Clash - Bankrobber - Sony BMG
Mikey Dread - Saturday Night Style - Auralux
Mikey Dread - Autobiography - On-U-Sound
Kenyatta "Culture" Hill - Pray Dem Off - Tafari Records
Prince Malachi - Fire Chant - Blakamix
Pama Intl Love Filled Dub Band - I Rise - Roots Rockers Reggae
Barry Brown - Tribulation - Attack
Vibronics - Silver and Gold -
Bebo in a Dub Style - Hott Stuff - Tafai
Congo Natty - from Lead with Bass III
Luciano - Sattamassagana - Tafari
Bunny Wailer - Rock n Groove - Tafari
Gregory Issacs - Temptation - Le Son Du Maquis
The Meditations - No More Friend (12"Mix) - Greensleeves
Ras Shiloh - Only King Selassie - Greensleeves
Israel Vibration - Far Beyond - from Stamina - Mediacom
Chezidek - Inna di Road - from Inna di Road - Greensleeves
Black Francis - Theseus - Cooking Vinyl
The Accidental - Wolves - Full Time Hobby
The Moldy Peaches - Anyone Else But You -
Samatha Marais - Please Take Your Time - Butterfly
Hepzibah Broom - Potters Song - Red Deer Club
The Breeders - We're Gonna Rise - 4AD
Tetine - I Got the Doctor - Soul Jazz Records
Metonomy - My heart Rate Rapid - Because
Devotional Ensemble - Section00

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Playlist - 15th March 2008

Audio

Chariots of Wire Race 1

Derrick Harriott - Derrick – Crystal Records
Rudy Mills - Long Story – Derrick’s One Stop
Scotty - Sing A Long – Crystal
The Federals - Penny For Your Song – Scotty
Scotty - Penny For Your Song
The Crystalites - Penny For Your Song Version – Crystal
Scotty - Penny For Your Song – Crystal
U Roy - Penny For Your Dub –
The Crystalites –Your Dub Version - Crystal
Roman Stewart & Dave - Changing Times –
The Crystalites - Changing Times Version – Song Bird
Dennis Brown – Changing Times – Trojan
Scan One - Orca - Combat-Toolkit
Dennis Brown – Silhouettes – Trojan
Big Youth - Dock Of The Bay –
Big Youth & Augustus Pablo – Bass & Drum Version – Move & Groove
Keith & Tex – Stop That Train – Rusty Dusty
Big Youth - Cool Breeze –
The Crystalites – Wind Storm - Move & Groove
The Crystalites –Draw Your Brakes – Scotty/Brake Riddim - Crystal
The Ethiopians - No Baptism –
The Crystalites - No Baptism Version - Derrick’s One Stop Blank
The Crystalites - Blacula –
The Crystalites – Blacula Version - Grape
Derrick Harriott - Solomon – Derrick’s One Stop Blank
Scotty – Riddle I This – Crystal

Selected by Harry Hawke


Scan One - Orca - Combat-Toolkit
Badawi vs Juakali - Crows
The Ballarats - Someone's Jealous - Ballarat Records -
Thomas Tantrum - Swan Lake -
Unkle - Restless - Surrender ALL Records
The Kills - Cheap and Cheerful - Domino
Malcolm Middleton - Week Off - Full Time Hobby
The Poems - See the Sunrise - x-phonics
Paula Darwish - Mavilim -
Vampire Weekend - Cape Code Kwassa Kwassa - XL
Autechre - Altibzz - Warp

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Playlist - 8th March 2008 - Funkology

Soul Searchers - Boogie Up the Nation Part II - Polydor
Love Unlimited Orchestra - King Kong - Unlimited Gold
Jessie Gould - Out of Work - P&P Records
Marvin Gaye - Ain't it Funny (How Things Around) - Tamla
Reel People feat. Tony Morelle & Imani - Amazing - Papa Records
Angela Johnson - Play Featuring Frank McComb - Dome
Erykah Badu - Me - Universal Motown
Billy Frazier - Billy Who - Underdog Edits
The Gift - By My Side - Gift of Dreams - 002
Jean Carn - Time Waits for No-One - Philadelphia International Records
Johnny Jenkins - I walk on Glided Splinters - BGP
Marvin Gaye - Anger (alternate extended mix) - Tamla
Kleeer - Taste the Music - Atlantic
Rufuss - Obsidian Soul Remixes - Qalomota -
The Sunburst Band - Rough Times - Z- Records
Big Youth - Moving Version -
Dennis Alcapone - The Funky Tang - Trojan
Joe Gibbs & Professionals - The Entebbe Affair -
Charles Wright & Watts 103rd Street Band - Dance, A kiss and A song - Rhino
The Jackson 5 - Mirror of My Mind - Underdog Re-edit-
Brother Llyod's All Stars - The Tramp - BBE

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Playlist - 1st March 2008

Cup and Saucer - Cup and Saucer - Heritage
Crumb Brothers - Seat in the Kingdom - Mississippi Records
Cabulashi Iman Zamir, Amin Xamji Cusmann & Nuur Maxamed Curuba - Siina Miiri - Mississippi Records
Peret - Chavi - Love Monk l
Freddie McGregor - Joggin' /Joggin' into dub - Warrior
DJ Dolores - Shakespeare - Ziriguiboom
The Zirkons - Lone stranger - Timetone Records
Sam Cooke - Somebody have mercy - RCA/Legacy
Orchestra Baobab - Pape Ndiaye - World Circuit
Toumani Diabate - Kaonding Cissoko - World Circuit
Huan Qing - Fire (track 3) - Tu'an
Huan Qing - Water (track 5) - Tu'an
John W Summers & Art Rosenbaum - Stoney Point
Miles Davis - Black Satin - Columbia
Fuck Buttons - Sweet Love for Planet Earth - ATP
Lord Tanamo - Taller Than you are - Sanctuary
Dylan Owen - Clever Car Mechanics -
Cadence Weapon - In Search of the Youth Crew - Big Dada
St Vitus Dance - The stakeholder's Lament - Probe Plus
The King Blues - Music Man - Field Recordings
Lord Tanamo - Iron Bar
Vampire Weekend - A-Punk - XL Recordings
Nina Nastasia - Your red Rose - Fat Cat
Basia Bulat - In the Night - Rough Trade
Cath and Phil Tyer - Fisherman's Girl - No-fi
Felicia Atkinson & Sylvain Cauveau - Aberdeen - O Rosa Records

Dub Review - March 2008

Black Roots

In Session

MAKASOUND CD

No relationship to the more familiar Sugar Minott organisation of the same name,

Black Roots were formed in Bristol in the late 70s producing their self-titled debut in 1982 followed by The Front Line in 1984 both on their own Nubian label. This set includes their two Peel BBC sessions along with six other earlier tracks recorded between 1979 and 1980 and follows the reissue of their first two albums by Makasound combined as On the Frontline in 2004. The Beeb's studios in London's maida Vale were in full steam at the time and very much like other UK reggae acts of the period Black Roots supported touring acts from Jamaica so when they cut their tunes in the sessions their experience showed. Augmented by an excellent the horn section of Rico Rodriguez, Dick Cuthell and Ruddi Hymes standout tracks are covers from the first two albums, including "Tribal War" (not the Little Roy tune) and "What Them A Do" plus the four 12 inch cuts included as a bonus amongst which is the great "Bristol Rock". Like many other UK bands of the era early crossover promise fizzled out in the face of the mainstream juggernaut, but as proficient and exciting as either Aswad or Steel Pulse and equally identifiable as a product of the UK Black Roots were a key part of the country's under-exposed reggae history.



Cultural Roots

Hell Go A Pop

GREENSLEEVES CD

Greensleeves continues their 30th Anniversary reissue programme with the release of this often overlooked album from 1984 from Cultural Roots, a rare vocal quartet amongst Jamaica's predominant harmony trios. Maybe this set's reputation suffered as at the time of its appearance as DJs and the harder dancehall style was in ascendance. Following up Rub-A-Dub, Drift Away From Evil and Revolutionary Sounds, all produced by Donovan Germain this set was produced by Henry "Junjo" Lawes and recorded and mixed by Soldgie with the Roots Radics at Channel One, there are no musician credits but it's a clearly less heavyweight sound than that squeezed out by Scientist and is more reminiscent of Sly & Robbie's prevailing rhythms at Taxi Records. This sits nicely with the work of the Wailing Souls and the Tamlins for the same period. The two strongest tunes on the album are the title track, a dancehall favourite "Love Feelings", versioning John Holt's "Police In Helicopter", both tracks are here dubwise in their extended 12" mixes.



Dubmood

Atari-Ska L'Atakk

JAHTARI NET E.P. (MP3)

Dubmood is a 'chip-music' artist from Gothenburg now operating out of Marseille with over 300 different pieces composed on Amiga, PC, Atari ST and Gameboy for a large number of key generators, crack intros, demos, installers, chip-music disks, 8bit console album-compilations in 2004. The EP gets in a rush with the opener, a version of the Skatalites classic "(Theme from) Exodus" from the movie of the same name, followed by cover of the Liberators "Kick de Bucket". The version of The Maytals' "Pressure Drop" is enough to induce hypertension in serious Clash fans (which Clash fans are not serious?) as it's the Toots soul scorcher done over inna Fisher Price style. But the most seriously deranged track here is the highly addictive "VodSka-Dance", apparently featuring some popular Russian folk tune that buzzes uncontrollably around your head long after the music dies. The final track, the catchily titled "Dbug CD197", is a collaboration with chip tunes roots rocker GOTO 80. OK Jim, its not dub as we know it, but the strain is mutating rapidly. Dubmood is running the Marseille Micro:HQ together with Gameboy-musician Confipop, organising workshops, seminars and concerts dedicated to chip music with the French organisation La Cyber Nostra, and for later this year co-ordinating Europe's biggest chip music-event: The Data Airlines Festival.



I Dub New York Sound System

I Dub New York

WACKIES / PSYCHIC DUB KAT CD

I DUB NEW YORK (IDNY) seems to be a loosely based sound system conglomerate based in the city, coming together at Wackies Studio in the Bronx for arranging, producing and mixing this album; whilst touched by the hands of Lloyd 'Bullwackie' Barnes himself both as artist and engineer the tunes here are further 'out there' in leftfield compared to the output of the studio's house imprint, now at its highest height for visibility and sales in its nearly thirty year history thanks to the patronage of Berlin's Rhythm & Sound axis.

Lloyd Barnes invokes his Chosen Brothers persona for two vocals "Fighting for a Cause" and "Rise Up", the former has a muffled slo-mo hydraulic thump of a rhythm from a spaced two note repeating bass line while at the top end Daniel Carter's airy alto sax is free to float, its made for dubbing which is exactly what happens with the ensuing "Fighting Dubwise". "Rise Up" and its version "Macchina Della Canapa" is more insistently mid tempo to match the upful lyric delivered in a Curtis Mayfield on mogadon style, but it's the dub that provides the track's rationale with beautifully restrained plangent guitar work from Carolyn 'Honeychild' Coleman. Black Redemption's Ras Kush guests on "Global Warning" but the standout is "Zatoichi Dub" featuring Doug Principato here claiming the title of the Grand Pepper of Reality whose specialism is banjo-like riffing on the shamisen, sounding like it had travelled West detouring in through the Appalachians!



HighTone

Underground Wobble

JARRING EFFECTS CD

HighTone can best be described as a continually evolving dub band having taken on board numerous influences over their ten year plus existence, they started out as a dub band and still are a dub band albeit a long way from their starting point. They have had a dual trajectory over the past few years, one in their hybrid experiments with acts as diverse as China's Wang Lei or the even deeper dubbier Improvisators back in France plus their own elliptical orbit visiting electro, breaks, hip hop and industrial whilst revisiting their dub roots on a regular basis. And so it is with this latest set, weighing in at fifteen tracks and 72 minutes an edit down to traditional vinyl album length would have left a number of these cuts able to claim more attention. Although the opening "Understellar" submits to the obligatory dubstep references and the following "Freakency" veers between d'n'b and sludgy breaks compensations come later when their dub pedigrees surface on "Glowing Fire" and "Depth in the Middle", and the growing influences of North Africa particularly on "Growing Fast". The effect is in search of cinema, if David Lynch re-mixed Dune these boys from Lyons would be right for the job.



Karl Masters & Joe Higgs

Freedom Journey / Journey to Freedom

Joe Higgs

Let Us Do Something / Instrumental

PRESSURE SOUNDS 7" VINYLS
Coinciding with the recent release of the peerless Life Of Contradiction album is the revival of two rare seven inches from he early seventies on Joe Higgs' own Elevation imprint, replicating Joe's original label artwork in the fashion of Pressure Sounds series of vinyl revivals. "Let Us Do Something" is a typical Joe Higgs tune, with inspirational lyrics musing on the consequences on inaction faced with social injustice, and whilst JB was bashing this sentiment out across funk grooves from Washington to L.A. in Jamaica the tendency was towards a lazier osmosis for messages of change. "Freedom Journey" is the accompanying instrumental take on the tune, it's all brooding atmosphere, an eco-fuelled nyabinghi drive initially swathed in Hammond before a magisterially relaxed trombone navigates the way through to a percussion reprise for the outro and the organ swashes up against the rhythm. The version of "Freedom Journey" dispenses with the 'bone and leaves the groove to find its way home, whilst the instrumental of the vocal can only be described as prosaic compared to its radically lush offspring.



Pama International

Love Filled Dub Band

ROCKERS REVOLT CD

Last year this band was the first to sign to Trojan Records for 30 years. I assume that was before Trojan, and its parent company Sanctuary, were swallowed up by one of the three or four corporate Death Stars of music, Universal. Nothing is on the release horizon from Trojan, gone from glut to famine, but this lot has been slotted on to the ersatz sub-label, the embarrassingly named Rockers Revolt. Far from revolt, and despite what the band may think, this appears like a thinly veiled attempt to weigh in on the current UK vogue for reggae-lite a la Lily Allen – but at least Lily snagged some heavyweight remixes. Here both the sonics and lyrics are perfunctory and prosaic, best exemplified by the modern protest by numbers like "Throwaway Society" or "Highrise" where DJ Michie One does her best on this unashamed borrow of the rhythm of "Cherry Oh Baby". The aim is obviously to pick up from all the undelivered ideas left at the roadside by 2 Tone and the early 80s UK ska fetish and this affair is at its best when paying homage to the Dragonaires or the Upsetters on "Orgon Will Follow".



Rod Taylor

Where Is Your Love Mankind

GREENSLEEVES CD

Rod Taylor is one of those late roots artists whose work was almost a distillation of all that youthman righteousness that bubbled up to the end of the seventies, in his sets a couple of sweet lovers tunes would normally balance the overriding tones of redemption, resentment and spiritual rebellion. Produced by Henry Junjo Lawes and recorded at Channel One and mixed by Scientist down at Tubbys studio the musicians here are the earlier incarnation of the Roots Radics with heavyweight drummer Carlton 'Santa' Davis holding the tuffest sticks in the business and responsible for creation of the monumental signature sound of the house band that ruled reggae through the early eighties, Sly Dunbar and Style Scott came in his sizable wake. It's a fuller sound than the later Radics with regular organ curlicues from Ansel Collins and Steely wrapped around the rhythm, the guitars of Sowell and Bingy Bunny are allowed more flourish than later work where drum and bass dominated the feel of the track. Where Is You Love Mankind followed 1979's If Jah Should Come Now released on Adrian Sherwood's Hitrun label and Keith Stone's Daddy Kool - indicating that Taylor was aligned to the punk axis alongside his contemporaries Dr.Alimantado and Tapper Zukie, its probably one of the last great classics of the roots era.



Various Artists

This is Lovers Rock

GREENSLEEVES CD

It would be tempting to think that the time for Lovers Rock has come at last, what with the regular stream of releases featuring the music over the last two years, but to be realistic this was always a niche music because most people will just never get it. Although the first example of UK Lovers Rock was produced smack in the middle of the roots boon in 1975 – Lloydie Coxsone's production of Louisa Marks' "Caught You in a Lie", a version of the Robert Parker soul classic – the sub-genre only emerged later in the decade with the involvement of London based producers like Leonard Chin, Dennis Bovell, the Browns Dennis and Castro, Neil Fraser and Clem Bushay recognising the market. That market was created by the movement of roots music to an increasingly conscious or militant stance leaving vacuum to be occupied by a new music that appealed to girls and young women, then the core of any pop audience. Filtering the then popular sweeter Philly soul sounds through a heavy roots backdrop with the bass intact spelt success on the streets and in the dance. Fascinating to look back and find the socio-anthropological nuances offered, as on this great selection there's Brown Sugar's "I'm in Love with a Dreadlocks" followed directly by Sister Love's "Goodbye Little Man", or Keith Douglas' PC gagging "I Specialise in Good Girls" running into a tune that could only now be interpreted as the height of sarcasm Deborah Glasgowe's "Knight in Shining Armour". An innocent antidote to the turgidity of much of today's music.