Soundtrack Saturday

Reggae's cultural breakthrough in the UK in the 1970s had many points that seem like watersheds including but not only: Bob Marley's rise to global fame and string of hit singles; Chris Blackwell and Island Records' focus on the Jamaican sound systems and artists; the Notting Hill Carnival's growth and popularity; various punk bands covering and promoting reggae and dub songs (not least The Clash's punk- reggae covers and John Lydon's enthusiasm); various budget price reggae compilations such as the Reggae Chartbusters and Tighten Up series of albums; and a pair of films and their soundtracks, 1972's The Harder They Come starring Jimmy Cliff and featuring a host of classic reggae songs and 1978's Rockers. 

The Rockers OST is a brilliant primer, a collection of hits and deep cuts from Jamaica, stars and lesser known acts, a sampler of roots reggae at its best. The film shows 70s reggae and its culture at its best, following Horsemouth, a drummer, and his money making plan to sell reggae records to the soundsystems, buzzing around the island on his orange motorbike. It started as a documentary and stars many reggae artists as themselves- Leroy Horsemouth Wallace is filmed at their homes with is actual family. Robbie Shakespeare, Big Youth, Dillinger, Gregory Isaacs and Burning Spear all appear. Eventually things go wrong for Horsemouth and his bike is stolen and he runs into problems with organised crime.

The soundtrack is fourteen songs from the film (with another sixteen heard in the film and not on the soundtrack album). This is sample of five of them opening with Inner Circle and the line, 'Dreadlocks, dreadlocks/ Flying through the air',a  tribute to roots rockers reggae...

We 'A' Rockers

Junior Murvin's Police And Thieves is a genuine classic, his voice quivering and floating over Lee Perry's production..

Police And Thieves

The Heptones' Book Of Rules is a sensational piece of vocal reggae, originally a single in 1973, the three way vocals a joy and the song apparently based on an American poem A Bag Of Tools by Robert Lee Sharpe.

Book Of Rules

Bunny Wailer's Rockers provides the film with a title and a very slinky piece of reggae, harmonica on top of the rhythms and Bunny singing of skanking with the rockers in the morning.

Rockers

Burning Spear were led by the golden voice of Winston Rodney, represented here in almost a capella style over an ambient/ found sound backdrop, Winston singing of Marcus Garvey, Addis Ababa and Jah. Weirdly, this is the first time that I've ever posted any Burning Spear here. 

Jah No Dead

The Collapse Of Everything

Adrian Sherwood's The Grand Designer EP that lit up June and continues to get regular plays round here. The lead and title track is a beautifully rich and textured piece of dub, all manner of instruments and FX flying in and out of the mix over a bobbing rhythm and occasional bursts of siren. It's followed by Let's Stay Together, a track in the old style dub tradition of using the same rhythm and some of the sounds but with a vocal drizzled over the top, in this case one b the late Lee 'Scratch' Perry, the Upsetter jutting in and out in typical fashion. I suspect Mr Sherwood has files and tapes filled with Lee Perry vocals just waiting to find a track. 

Let's Stay Together is followed by Russian Oscillator which may (or may not) be based on the same building blocks but distorted and bent out of shape, rough industrial abstract dub. The fourth track, Cold War Skank, is a joy, guitars and rumbling bass, echoes of the desert and Saharan blues. 

The Grand Designer can be heard and bought here. It turns out that the EP is a spearhead, leading the charge for a Sherwood solo album to follow in August, a record called The Collapse Of Everything. The title track and album opener dropped onto the internet earlier this week, old school dub from the On U studio- languorous dub groove, bubbling bass, sounds ricocheting left and right, FX and flow, piano and fuzz guitar. 

The Collapse Of Everything was partly inspired by the losses of Mark Stewart and Keith LeBlanc- the title comes from a Stewart song- and features Doug Wimbish, Gaudi and Brian Eno all making appearances among a cast of sixteen players. You can pre- order the album on vinyl and digitally at Bandcamp. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Dub Syndicate

The new Dub Syndicate album- Obscured By Version- has taken up residence on my turntable, nine new versions by Adrian Sherwood of tracks from the 1989- 1996 period, the original tapes redubbed. Style Scott's rhythms remain the centrepiece. Around them Sherwood constructs entirely new versions, the original track sometimes peeking through with classic dub FX bouncing in and out- door bells, lions roaring, bicycle bells, horns, tyres screeching. It's a wonderfully pulled together album, Adrian's tribute to his friend Style who was found dead in his home in Jamaica in 2014. 

Style Scott and Adrian formed Dub Syndicate in 1982, Scott having drummed with Roots Radics, Sons of Arqa and Creation Rebel. Fifteen albums followed, most of them on On U Sound and two recorded with Lee 'Scratch' Perry. 1985's Tunes From The Missing Channel, the third Dub Syndicate album, is a personal favorite, one of my favourite dub/ On U Sound albums. 1990's Strike The Balance is not far behind it. With all this in mind, I thought a Sunday mix was in order.

Forty Five Minutes Of Dub Syndicate

• Right Back To Your Soul
• Drilling Equipment
• Hawaii
• Pounding System
• Walking On The Edge
• Out And About
• 2001 Love
• Train To Doomsville
• Ravi Shankar Pt 1

Right Back To Your Soul is on Obscured By Version, a superb dub of a dub, the bass and riddim riding in, organ and melodica floating around and eventually jazz club piano, Sherwood's mastery of the desk and production at its absolute peak. The original track dates fro the 1993 Echomania sessions according to Dr Rob's excellent sleeve notes. 

Drilling Equipment was on 1991's One Way System and prior to that a cassette only release in 1983 on ROIR, uncompromising sound sculpture, industrial dub.

Hawaii is from 1990's Strike The Balance, an album with vocals courtesy of Bim Sherman and Shara Nelson along with a bizarro world cover of Je T'aime. Hawaii has a lilt and melodiousness to it that is entirely appropriate and naturally a Hawaiian guitar solo. 

Pounding System was the 1982 Dub Syndicate debut, members of Creation Rebel and African Head Charge throwing the heavy rhythms and dub FX around. I think this release actually predated Style Scott joining and then becoming the centre of Dub Syndicate. 

Walking On The Edge is from a live album, Live At The T+C 1991 (not released until 1999) complete with an echo- laden sampled transmission warning of the dangers of nuclear weapons. 

Out And About is from Tunes From The Missing Channel, a seminal dub album with contributions from Jah Wobble, Ashanti Roy, Keith Levene and Bim Sherman. Out And About is the album's closing track, a magnificent dub ending. Ravi Shankar Pt. 1 opens it, the sound of the sitar and dub crossover, a legendary piece of On U music. 

2001 Love is from 19993's Echomania and samples Allen Ginsberg's voice from the 1968 film Tonite Let's All Make Love In London, a documentary about Swinging London.

Train To Doomsville is from Pay It All Back Vol. 2, the series of wallet friendly compilations On U Sound have released periodically since the early 80s. Vol 2 came out in 1988, Train To Doomsville saw Dub Syndicate joined by Lee 'Scratch' Perry. 

V.A. Saturday

In 1985 the first volume of Pay It All Back was released by On U Sound, a compilation that turned into a series that serve as budget priced primers and round ups of On U sounds as well as outlets for unreleased tracks and alternate mixes. Pay It All Back Volume 8 came out in 2022, another edition of Adrian Sherwood's singular vision of dub, reggae, electro/ industrial with umpteen legendary artists across the series. This is a trio of tracks as a selection, a mere scratching of the surface. 

From 1988's Volume 2, this is Dub Syndicate, a studio sample- fest with pots and pans percussion, electric drills, radio announcements and between station static, guitars and with the mighty Lee 'Scratch' Perry.

Train To Doomsville

From Volume 4 in 1993, Little Annie- horns, bass and Annie's so distinctive New York voice. 

Bless Those

Finally, from 2022's Volume 8, Tackhead and LSK, pummelling electro- dub from Doug Wimbish, Skip McDonald and the late Keith Leblanc with Leigh Steven Kenny on vox. 

Rulers And Foolers

Half An Hour Of Lee Scratch Perry

I had the idea of a Lee Scratch Perry mix a long time ago but then baulked- where to start??? In the end I just went with my gut. Part of me then thought, having selected Soul Fire as the starting point, 'how on earth do you follow that?', but when I relaxed into it and just let it flow, it seemed much easier. There's an embarrassment of riches with Lee and I was tempted to include some post- classic roots/ dub 70s material- his song with the Beastie Boys, a Terence Trent D'arby remix or his stuff with The Orb- but decided eventually that was a mix for another Sunday. After finishing this mix I looked back through my folders and files and found hundreds of tracks and songs that could appear on it but by that point I decided to leave it alone. As it is, this is Lee Scratch Perry, The Upsetter, straight out of the Black Ark, for your Sunday morning. 

Half An Hour Of Lee Scratch Perry

• Soul Fire
• I Am The Upsetter
• Roast Fish And Corn Bread
• People Funny Boy
• Disco Devil
• Cloak And Dagger
• Throw Some Water In
• Scratch Walking
• River Stone

Soul Fire, Throw Some Water In and Roast Fish And Corn Bread are all from Lee's 1978 album Roast Fish Collie Bread And Corn Bread, his first solo album to feature his vocals, recorded at his Black Ark studio, Kingston, Jamaica. Soul Fire is absurdly good, so far from home, so rich in sound and so righteous, as Perry sings, Soul fire! And we ain't got now water...'. Lee's unorthodox approach to production and instrumentation is typified nowhere more than the use of a cow mooing in Roast Fish And Corn Bread. Still startling. 

I Am The Upsetter was a single in 1968, recorded with legendary producer Joe Gibbs.

People Funny Boy was a 1969 single, an attack on Gibbs with whom Perry split the previous year. The crying baby, heard as Perry walked past a church was to catch the vibration of the people. People Funny Boy's fast chuggy beat and distinctly Jamaican sound was a game changer on the island, sending the sound systems and producers down an entirely new path. 

Disco Devil is a dubbed out version of the song he produced for Max Romeo in 1976, Chase the Devil, with the famous 'put on me iron shirt' line. 

Cloak And Dagger was recorded with Tommy McCook and The Upsetters in 1973, recorded on his TEAC four track at Black Ark. 

Scratch Walking was recorded with The Upsetters, dating from the Return Of The Super Ape album in 1978 and the last album he recorded with The Upsetters before he shut down Black Ark, is wonky instrumental reggae from another world. 

River Stone is the B-side dub of River, a Perry produced track by the group Zap Pow. In the mid- 90s Pressure Sounds released an album called Voodooism, thirteen Perry productions with their dubs on two sides of vinyl. Blew my mind then and still does now. 

Forty Minutes Of Dot Allison

A Dot Allison mix for Sunday, entirely songs from the post- One Dove years (a One Dove mix is something for another Sunday I think, maybe quite soon). It was only when I started thinking about this mix properly that I realised how many songs she's sung on with other people since One Dove, not to mention her various solo albums (Afterglow in 1999, 2002's We Are Science done with Two Lone Swordsman Keith Tenniswood, 2007's folky singer songwriter Exaltation Of Larks and 2021's Heart Shaped Scars all exist in one format or another round here). In the end, once I decided to include the Lee Perry remix and her two songs with Wigan guitarist Mark Peters from last year, it turned into a fuzzy, hazy Balearic, leftfield kind of selection- I tried some of the songs from We Are Science but they just didn't fit with the mood.  

Forty Minutes of Dot Allison

• Switched On
• Love Died In Our Arms (Lee Scratch Perry Remix)
• Dirge (Adrian Sherwood Remix)
• Dirge
• Aftersun
• Sundowning (Richard Norris Remix)
• Mo' Pop
• Message Personnel (Arab Strap Remix)

Switched On and Sundowning are both from Mark Peters excellent 2022 album Red Sunset Dreams with Dot on vocals. Switched On is a version of Switch On The Sky, the first single from the album, and Richard Norris remixed Sundowning twice for a follow up single, one ambient and one with drums. 

Love Died In Our Arms was from a solo EP, Entangled, out a year ago. Lee Scratch Perry's remix was the final thing he worked on before his death. Dot had assumed Lee had died before being able to remix her song until she was contacted by Lee's widow and told otherwise. 

Dirge was on  the 1999 Death In Vegas album The Contino Sessions, the  opening song and a single too. Apologies if the Adrian Sherwood remix version in this mix is a bit quiet- from memory I downloaded it from the Death In Vegas MySpace page (!) circa 2007 and it's a low bitrate compared to everything else here. You may have to turn the volume up. 

Aftersun was recorded with Massive Attack in 2005 and included in the film Danny The Dog but not the CD soundtrack. It was available from Dot's website. 

Mo' Pop was on Dot's debut solo album Afterglow and a single too. It is late 90s soul- pop perfection, with a superb Henry Olsen bassline. Message Personnel was on Afterglow too and also a single, which came with this very nice Arab Strap remix. 

This Is Joe Public Speaking

In September 1977 The Clash released their third single, the adrenaline rush, punk high watermark and righteous fury that is Complete Control. Written and recorded in a fit of disgust at CBS who had put out Remote Control as a single, a song that was already available to fans on the band's debut album (the single came with a B-side that was a live version of London's Burning to add to the sense that fans were being ripped off). In the hyper- consumerist days of late stage capitalism that is 2022 you could be forgiven for thinking that there are worse things a record company could do than release an already available song as a single but that's to underestimate things. For The Clash this was a sure sign that their record company were the enemy. 

Complete Control

Complete Control is The Clash's single most exhilarating moment in a career full of them, a high octane rush of guitars, Topper's drums (his first recording since joining), Joe's voice and a lyrical state of the punk rock nation address. It starts out with their disgust at CBS releasing Remote Control...

'They said 'release Remote Control'/ But we didn't want it on the label' 

...and then goes elsewhere, record company press jaunts next in the firing line...

'They said 'fly to Amsterdam'/ the people laughed/ the press went mad'

For a band as obsessed with smoking weed as The Clash you'd think they'd be happy to go to Amsterdam but they won't be told to go. The song's title, referenced in the next line, comes from a meeting with the group's manager Bernie Rhodes at The Ship on Wardour Street, who kept saying he wanted complete control. Strummer and Simonon had to leave the pub, collapsing through laughing so much. Again, the state of punk in 1977- Rhodes (and Pistols manager McLaren) demanded control of their bands. The bands didn't want to be controlled by anyone. Or at least, seen to be. The group's run ins with the law and habit of letting ticketless fans in to gigs by pushing open fire exits get a verse too, punk credentials further established. Joe and Mick are still furious though, ramping up the lyrical content to match the adrenaline rush of the guitars with lines about being 'artistically free' and 'bits of paper' and record companies who want to 'make a lot of money and worry about it later'. Joe's so angry that during the guitar solo he takes the Mick down snarling 'you're my guitar hero'. Mick must have been happy to leave this in. Mick was happy to be a guitar hero, even in the No Beatles, Elvis or Rolling Stones frenzy of 1977. 

The second half of the song breaks down, a brief pause from Mick's wall of treble, with Joe adopting the point of view of tabloid press and TV news and their view of punk as 'dirty, filthy... ain't gonna last'. The call and response vocals between Joe and Mick are incredible, a weapon lots of the other punk bands didn't have- 'Control/ C- O- N/ Control'. Everything about Complete Control, all three minutes and ten seconds of it, is as good as punk rock guitar music can be.

Lee 'Scratch' Perry produced Complete Control. He heard their cover of Police And Thieves, was in London with Bob Marley and The Wailers and invited to come to Sarm East studios in Whitechapel to produce. Legend has it that the group, Mick especially, took Lee's production and re- produced it somewhat, bringing the guitars further forward, dialing the dub echo down. In the punk rock cauldron of autumn 1977 you can understand why- a weirded out dub version of the song would have been confusing and at odds. Jon Savage, so disappointed with the band by the time of Give 'Em Enough Rope that he penned the line 'so do they squander their greatness' in a review of that album, said in England's Dreaming that Complete Control was not a 'piece of cynicism [but] a hymn to Punk autonomy at its moment of eclipse'. 

In 1999, promoting The Clash's posthumous live album From Here To Eternity a live version of Complete Control was released by CBS. The album jumps about, live versions from different venues and different years and despite this holds up well. Complete Control is from The Clash's lengthy residency at Bond's Casino, Times Square, New York, in 1981 (13th June to be exact). The fire that fuelled them writing it and recording it in 1977 is still burning brightly- it's an incendiary and hair raising version, Mick's guitars firing on all cylinders, Joe at his very best, and Topper's drumming is ' incredible- his kick drum at the start, the snare drum during the 'all over the news spread fast' section and his fills as the song rushes towards its conclusion- especially. This version has popped up on my mp3 player during my drive to work three times this week, every time sounding as exciting as it possibly could. 

Complete Control (Live at Bond's)

Love's Stubborn Ghost

It's a friend's 50th birthday today and we're off to Edale in Derbyshire for some walking in the Peaks and a few pints. A blast of early February Peak District weather on exposed hillsides should give us a jump start. 

A few thoughts on where I am with the aftermath of Isaac's death and grief. I'm trying to keep the blog largely music oriented but every now and then it helps to put things down in writing. Last week was really tough, it just seemed so gloomy all week and we were all very down. We went to a monumental masons last week to start the process of looking for a headstone. I'm not sure we've made any progress there. The whole thing seems to big to deal with at the moment- picking a stone and then text which will be literally written in stone and displayed in the cemetery for years, decades, centuries possibly, to come. The experience of going in and being shown catalogues and samples is very bizarre too, makes picking a headstone feel like buying a new sofa or a car. I don't think we have made any decisions yet, just narrowed down what we definitely don't want. These are not the things you expect to have to do as a parent and its only three months ago he was very much still alive and with us. 

On Sunday we took Eliza back to university in Liverpool, a return to normality for her but one which was causing some anxiety all round. The early part of this week we felt ok but both of us have an odd feeling growing about the house suddenly being just the two of us. Going to work has become a routine again although I feel a bit like I'm just going through the motions, semi- detached from everything else that's going on there. I just turn up to teach my lessons and then go again. Then on Thursday as I was walking to the car park a wall of grief hit me out of nowhere, triggered by one thought that fleeted across my mind out of nowhere, the feeling that life was Isaac was getting further away every day. He died on 30th November and it's February already. Time ticks on and every day is a step forward I suppose but every day is a step further away from him too. That's how it felt at that moment. 

The commute to work and back gives me time to dwell. Tuesday's are always hard. One thought on a Tuesday and in my head I'm right back in the room with him and the hours up to his death. It's all very vivid still. I can smell it and feel it. Those Nick Cave songs I was listening to last week are still reverberating round my head but I spent the first few days this week listening to Half Man Half Biscuit, Nigel Blackwell making me laugh out loud while driving. 

Music- I don't think anyone was expecting this. Dot Allison, formerly the voice of One Dove and a much revered figure round these parts, had an album out last year called Heart Shaped Scars. I haven't listened to it enough and need to get back into it. Yesterday a remix of Dot's Love Died In Our Arms was released digitally, the last remix done by the legendary Lee 'Scratch' Perry before he died in August last year, Dot's poetic indie- folk rejigged in a reggae style. Buy it at Bandcamp for a pound. 

Lee 'Scratch' Perry

Word came out of Jamaica yesterday that Lee 'Scratch' Perry had died aged 85. He seemed to have been around for so long and seemed so ancient that the idea of him dying is faintly absurd- it looked like he would just carry on forever but (like Charlie Watts last week) it turns out he was mortal after all. Perry's recording career from the early 70s onward is the stuff of legend. His role in the development of reggae and especially dub, using the studio as an instrument, is unsurpassed. His productions from the mid- 70s, done at his own Black Ark Studio are mind-bending pieces of music- the use of space and echo, animal noises dropped in, FX bouncing around, panning from left to right and back again, his creation of acres of room in the tracks but with sounds crammed in and piled on top of each is sheer brilliance. The basslines and horns. The snippets of vocals- soul fire, roast fish, cornbread and collie weed- are like missives from another world. His razor sharp productions for Junior Murvin (Police And Thieves, almost certainly my entry point to his work via The Clash), the unbelievably, effortlessly cool Heart Of The Congos, Party Time by The Heptones, Max Romeo's War Ina Babylon, Prince Jazzbo's Croaking lizard set the standard for what reggae music should sound like. His work with Bob Marley and The Wailers was crucial in their story. His influence on the punks, not least The Clash (and his production on Complete Control, probably reeled in after the event to make it more palatable to their audience), was huge. His song with The Beastie Boys is a wonky joy. His album with Adrian Sherwood last year showed he was still cutting it. 

In 1996 a compilation called Voodooism came out, a stunning collection of dub works taking in his own tracks and productions and dubs of the likes of Zap Pow, Errol Walker, Earl Sixteen, Leo Graham, The Hombres and The Black Notes. Future Dub is a dubbed out flipside to Errol Walker's Better Future single from 1977. I bought it and palye dit 

Future Dub

Soul Fire, from 1978 and the Roast Fish Collie Weed And Corn Bread album is otherworldly- cows mooing, a skanking riddim, a sizzle and a vocal that sounds like the heat of the surface of the sun. 

Soul Fire

Dreadlocks In Moonlight is smoother and slower, a vocal roots reggae song from 1976, Scratch cutting the tempo and the heat. 

Dreadlocks In Moonlight

On and on into his back catalogue you can go, finding something to love at almost every turn. 

Lee Perry aka The Upsetter, RIP. 

And We Ain't Got No Water

From 1977, a piece of Lee 'Scratch' Perry reggae so hot it could burn the vinyl it was pressed onto. Soul Fire clocks in slowly and then things fall into some kind of groove. A grunt, a hiss of steam, an organ groove and Lee's vocals, a rasping, edge of your seat kind of singing 'soul fiyah/ an' we ain't got no water'.  There's some 'la la la la la'. The horns come in low. This is so loose sounding but so on it and precise and the mix is superb, achieved using just a four track recording desk, some rum and collie weed (as SRC said a few weeks ago), the needles close to the red and the myriad of background noises that make something beautiful and righteous out of what could be chaos.

Soul Fire

Isolation Mix Eight

An hour and five minutes of lockdown vibes and an attempt to lift the spirits and up the tempo a bit this week. This one is a global trawl of tunes taking in Dubwood Allstars and their splicing together of King Tubby, Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton, a classic 70s Lee Perry production from the Black Ark in Kingston, Jamaica, Moon Duo doing Black Sabbath in very laid back style, groove- based melodic noise from Scotland (Mogwai) and Norway (Mythologen), some funky 80s crossover dance pop from NYC, Natasha Khan and Toy as Sexwitch, Paris duo Acid Arab and South London's Rude Audio, all on a Middle Eastern tip, and early 90s Balearic dub house majesty from Sheer Taft (Glasgow) and Underworld (Essex). Bank holiday weekend. Take it easy. Stay safe.

Dubwood Allstars: Under Dubwood

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Zap- Pow: Riverstone

Moon Duo: Planet Caravan

Mogwai: The Sun Smells Too Loud

Mythologen: Trust

Tom Tom Club: Wordy Rappinghood

Sexwitch: Ha Howa Ha Howa

Acid Arab: Club DZ

Rude Audio: Rumble On Arab Street

Sheer Taft: Cascades (Hypnotone Mix)

Underworld: M.E.

Disco Devil

I heard this playing recently, I think it was an Andrew Weatherall radio show, possibly one his 6 Mix shows, and it was one of those 'stop what you're doing and enjoy the music' moments. Lee 'Scratch' Perry in full dub remix mode, full of fire and smoke, pushing the faders and the echo all over the place. Psychedelic dub, warped and twisted and stretched into new shapes. At three and half minutes the track lurches to a halt, a bell rings and everything slows right down before the reverb- heavy vocals and rhythms re- appear and it's as if the ground shifts beneath your feet. Weatherall used to say in interviews that dub was like a religious experience for him. This is the sort of thing I imagine he was referring to.

Disco Devil

Disco Devil is a remixed, dubbed out version of Max Romeo's 1976 Chase The Devil with it's famous 'I'm gonna put on an iron shirt/and chase the devil out of earth' refrain. Lee Perry recorded and produced the original with The Upsetters and the 1977 remix is credited to Lee Perry and The Full Experiences. It was sampled memorably too by The Prodigy for their Out Of Space single in 1992.

Here Come The Warm Dreads

Coming out hot on the heels of his latest album Rainford, recorded with dub supremo Adrian Sherwood, Lee 'Scratch' Perry has now put out a dub version of that album, with some new Scratch- Sherwood tracks, titled Heavy Rain. If all that weren't enough the new album has a collaboration with Brian Eno, Here Come The Warm Dreads, a dubbed out Eno version of the track Makumba Rock. And that is your Friday soundtrack and earworm ordered and booked.

Rainford

May must be a prime time for throwing your art out into the world, this is the fourth new music post in less than a week here. Today's new music alert is from Lee Scratch Perry who has an album out at the end of the month, recorded with Adrian Sherwood at the controls. Rainford is a personal, autobiographical record recorded in bursts over two years in London, Jamaica and Brazil. Sherwood describes it as the strongest set of Scratch songs for years and set out with the intention of doing for the Upsetter what Rick Rubin did for Johnny Cash. The lead single Let It Rain goes some way to fulfilling those aims, catchy as you like and sounding like a song for the summer. The album can be pre-ordered at Bandcamp.



Scratch is on Twitter. On Sunday he Tweeted 'ALTHOUGH WE’RE IN THE END TIMES, WE ARE NOT AT THE END OF THE TIME. BE CAREFUL WHO YOU LISTEN TO.
SATAN IS RAGING NOW BECAUSE HE KNOWS THE TIME IS SHORT DON’T LISTEN TO GLOOM AND DOOM. IT IS TRICKERY DESIGNED TO DRAG YOU DOWN. WE SHOULD BE REJOICING AT WHAT GOD IS BRINGING FOTH!

And there's plenty more where that came from.

Khasha Macka

More from the magic fingers and ears of Lee 'Scratch' Perry. His Black Ark Studio had a four track tape recorder. Max Romeo said Scratch had another eight tracks running in his head. Black Board Jungle came out in 1973, recorded with The Upsetters, is a contender for first dub album, separating the instruments with drums and bass in the left channel and guitars and horns largely in the right. This song, Khasha Macka (a reworking of Prince Django's Hot Tip), is a wonderful trip. Check the splashy cymbals and the part at three minutes where he drops everything out to foreground the bass.

Khasha Macka 

Rockin' In The Backyard

Back to work today after a fortnight off, so it's a deep breath, time to gird one's loins and get back into it. Reorganising my records recently led to me discovering various things I'd forgotten I had including a 7" of Lee 'Scratch' Perry's 1978 song Roast Fish And Cornbread, four minutes which on their own mark Scratch out as some kind of musical genius. The song opens with him singing 'clip clop, cloppity cloppity cloppity cloppity high' as the offbeat riddim rides in, a cow's mooing utilised as part of the rhythm and Scratch further singing to his own beat- 'dreadnought and peanut, roast fish and cornbread... skanking in the backyard'.

Roast Fish And Cornbread

Black Vest

I'm trying to think of a situation that wouldn't be improved by sticking some Lee 'Scratch' Perry on. Not coming up with much.

Black Vest is off 1976's Super Ape album, ten dub cuts made with The Upsetters at The Black Ark. This song is particularly good, a bubbling bassline from Boris Gardiner and some deliciously delayed horns.

Black Vest

River Stone

This muddy stream is in the woods in Sale, a dirty tributary that I'm guessing ends up in the Mersey. Musically, today I offer you a delightfully strange song and its dub, both from the magic hands of Lee Perry and Zap Pow, recorded at Perry's Black Ark at some point in the 1970s (1977 I think). The original track is slowly wonky, vocal harmonies and horns and a lilting rhythm. The dub, River Stone, is dubbier and less strange, strangely. A river that smells of sweet herbs and drifts towards the sea.

River 

River Stone 

All The Peacemakers

I heard this out over the weekend, played over a decent sized PA, and it sounded even better than it usually does- what's more after checking I'm amazed that in the last five years and eight months I've been doing this thing I've never posted it. Junior Murvin's Police And Thieves, released in 1977 and produced by Lee Scratch Perry with The Upsetters providing the music, is one of reggae's truly great tunes. Scratch produced it along with The Heptones' Party Time and Max Romeo's War Ina Babylon in a burst of Back Ark inspired creativity. The guitar is lighter than air, the rhythm perfect and Murvin's falsetto vocal floats over the top while burying its way into your head.

Police and Thieves

Echo And Delay

A short film for Father's Day with our patron Andrew Weatherall talking about record collecting, rockabilly and dub, echo, delay, space and transcendence.



And here's a Lee 'Scratch' Perry production from the heart of the 1970s, The Black Notes.

African Style