In 2008 Quantic brought together a group of musicians as Flowering Inferno to put latin jazz through a dub reggae wringer. The result was an album called Death of the Revolution, and it was good. Now they’re back with a new one called Dog With A Rope (out July 13th), and it will also be good.
You can love or hate the Basegod but you gotta admit that’s a pretty good cover for a mixtape. The artwork was created by Benjamin Marra who is also responsible for the comparable 6 Kiss cover. It took me a second to figure out what the style of these reminded me of and then it hit me – a glossier more polished Wilfred Limonious. Limounious was a Jamaican graphic designer/illustrator responsible for some of the most memorable reggae and dancehall album covers of the 80s and early 90s. A few scans of his work are below the jump, does anybody else see a similarity here?
A couple of songs to jam while you’re looking, including the actual Black Ken song
Not too shabby reggae reworking of Bob James’ often sampled classic. Blundetto’s take stays pretty close to the original where it counts and so comes off as a tasteful and respectful homage. The dub version tweaks things up a little more with the prerequisite echos and various other spacey effects.
This is a completely random and incredibly great find which I stumbled across entirely by accident on the Leaving Records site. Just as the post title says, one hour of a radio program counting down the Top 40 dancehall songs for that particular week, presided over by legendary Jamaican DJ/radio personality Richie B (who is not the guy above as the internet lacks in good pics of Richie B).
It works well on several levels. On one hand it’s just a good compilation of late 80s dancehall, pretty much as good as most others you can buy or download elsewhere. If you wanna get a little deeper and a bit more pretentious, beyond its simple entertainment value this tape rip also makes for something of an immersive experience vaguely bordering on amateur cultural anthropology. Hearing the tracks via singles or albums is great in of itself, but within this context you also get a small glimpse of the music in its original setting as it was played for its original intended audience. Granted, the insights to be gleamed here are a bit slim and the prerequisite ingestion of collie will likely make them even slimmer. But it’s still fun as shit any way you look at it.
The rip is split into two parts approximately 30 minutes each, likely representing two sides of a 60 minute cassette. The only problem here is that a top 40 countdown on any radio station usually lasts 2 hours, so we only get to hear about half of the program and sadly never do get to find out what was the #1 dancehall track for Friday September 2 of 1988.
This was a completely random great find that I stumbled across accidentally while on the Leaving Records site. Just as the post title says, it’s one hour of a radio program counting down the Top 40 dancehall songs for the first week of September 1988, presided over by legendary Jamaican DJ/radio personality Richie B (who is not the guy above as the internet lacks in good pics of Richie B).
It works well on several levels. On one hand it’s just a good compilation of late 80s dancehall, pretty much as good as most others you can buy or download elsewhere. If you wanna get a little deeper and a bit more pretentious, beyond its simple entertainment value this tape rip also makes for something of an immersive experience vaguely bordering on amateur cultural anthropology. Hearing the tracks via singles or albums is great in of itself, but within this context you also get a small glimpse of the music in its original setting as it was played for its original intended audience. Granted, the insights to be gleamed here are a bit slim and the prerequisite ingestion of collie will likely make them even slimmer. But it’s still fun as shit any way you look at it.
The rip is split into two parts approximately 30 minutes each, likely representing two sides of a 60 minute cassette. The only problem here is that a top 40 countdown on any radio station usually lasts 2 hours, so we only get to hear about half of the program and sadly never do get to find out what was the #1 dancehall track for Friday September 2 of 1988.
Warm weather hit the North East this weekend like a mid-coital slap from a big breasted girl riding on top. As these things usually go, the sunshine forced me to lift the self-imposed winter reggae ban in favor of some irie shit. This was the specific irie shit I chose for the occasion.
The title pretty much says it all – this is a collection of obscure British dancehall singles released on the Unity Sounds label in the mid-late 80s. Deceptively simple digital production dictates the sound, these producers amply demonstrate how some bass and Casio drums can go a loooong way. The singing and the toasting is not too shabby either. Parallels to early electro Hip-Hop are easily apparent, as are the influences on later permutations of ragga. As usual with these things, versions are included.
This right here seems like a song that’s destined to end up on some obscure psych compilation 20 years from now, issued perhaps by Finders Keepers or maybe Stones Throw\Now Again.
What it is – an unholy collision of electro-soul, reggae and freakyass jazz, where layers of woozy narcotic bass and keyboard swirl in with all sorts of weird synths and distortions and sound effects. While all that is going on, the odd barely harmonized and slightly off-kilter vocals plead with the listener to ‘show me how to roll with a planet.’ Judging by the overall vibe of the song, I’m assuming the guy is trying to score some tabs.
The guy himself is an Australian by the name of Ari Roze. Unfortunately I could find no info on the man, nor any more work from him. For the sake of the story we can assume that Roze is some sort of Aborigine shaman who cooked this up while drinking fermented platypus milk on a walkabout through the darkest reaches of the Great Kangaroo Pouch In The Sky.
But wait, there is more. There is a dub on the b-side, and it might be almost better than the original. Here the weird vocals are stripped away in favor of some slow burning jazzy horns (possibly some melodica too), while the tension between the bass and keyboard is cranked up just a bit to unnerving effect. And of course, as this is a dub a few more strange sound effects and a bit more distortion are thrown in for good measure.
Yesterday was unseasonably warm, which prompted me to break out some reggae, which I will now share with you lucky motherfuckers. From my yard to yours and all that…
What you get is a compilation of singles released by Basic Replay, a British/German boutique label specializing in reggae reissues. It draws on various reggae hotbeds for content, from Jamaica to London to Brooklyn. Despite the eclectic origins, the collection presents a unified sound which skewers towards dancehall and heavy digital dub. The artists featured range from well known favorites like Gregory Isaacs and Jackie Mittoo to more obscure wunderkinds like Professor Grizzly and Ackie, who’s incredible “Call Me Rambo” was a subject of a Wax Poetics feature.
“Call me Rambo” is actually the very first track on here, and it is simply jaw dropping. Purists who posit that incorporation of digital production dulled the creativity of the genre would do well to check this out. The template is simple – a few refrains of badass vocals set against a backdrop of thumping percussion, gunshots and helicopter sound effects. With these deceptively minimal ingredients, Ackie and uncle/producer Chester Roots create an anthem so hard that it would make your average Burlington trustafarian barrista/Bob Marley tshirt aficionado trade in her AirMoses and Dave Eggers tomes for a pair of combat boots and a used copy of Shottas. After which she would surely go pull a jux on the whole 4th floor of her University of Vermont dorm. If there was ever a song meant to soundtrack the more triumphant moments in life, this is it.
If that doesn’t convince you, check out a few more samples. See what happens when Jackie Mittoo mixes up his trademark stylings with walls of fuzzy reverb and ethereal vocals. Hear Gregory Isaac’s soft spoken lovers rock re-imagined for ass shaking purposes (works better than one would suspect). Witness Prince Jazzbo take on dubstep conventions years before that word even existed. And that’s just scratching the surface of things.
01 Ackie: Call Me Rambo
02 Chuck Turner: Trying To Conquer I
03 Professor Grizzly: Fight The Professor
04 Ijahman Levi: I Am A Levi
05 Part 2
06 King Culture: Nice Up The Session Version
07 Courtney Melody: Black Liberation
08 Version
09 Tenastelin: Burial Tonight
10 Version
11 Keith Hudson: Hunting
12 Jackie Mittoo: Ayatollah
13 Gregory Isaacs: Dealing
14 Andrew Bees: Militant
15 White Mice: Nothing Never Done Before The Time
16 Prince Jazzbo: Replay Version
Not the LV of the Gangsta’s Paradise fame, that would’ve been something.
The original version of this song went far off the beaten rap path into the dangerous wilds where crunked leprechauns danced merry jigs at renaissance themed freaknicks. It was interesting and different and fun to listen to, but progressive experimentation doesn’t always lend itself to extensive replay value and after a little while I got tired of it.
This remix trades aural innovation for safe dubbed out stoned easy listening pleasures, with a reggae oriented sound that is almost geometrically opposite of the original. The result is the kind of song that works best thrown into a midst of a larger playlist. You probably wont purposely go right to it over and over as you turn on your ipod, but you’ll likely enjoy the shit out of it when it randomly pops up amongst similarly laid back fare.
