Ninety Minutes Of Psychedelic Dub From Rude Audio

Rude Audio's Mark Ratcliff is a fan of all things dub and many things psychedelic. He recently put together a psychedelic dub set, a ninety minute chugged up, dubbed out selection featuring some of Rude Audio's own recordings (with Dan Wainwright), some Duncan Gray, GLOK remixed by Hardway Bros meeting Monkton uptown, The Orb, a Richard Fearless remix of KXB, Future Sound Of London, Channel 15,  Tom Waits (!) and many more. Mark's very good at this kind of thing and with the temperatures in Amsterdam (where I am today, on a school trip) and at home in the UK due to top 30 degrees, this is an ideal soundtrack. You can listen at Soundcloud. 

If you're looking for a further Tom Waits/ dub interaction here's the mysterious B:dum B:dum and a punningly titled slice of deep dub, a sound that is all hiss, space and rhythm. B:dum B:dum were an early 90s Manchester outfit- members have since migrated into Marconi Union and Shunt Voltage. There's a 12" single isted on Discogs which contains four tracks, Istanbul, Angel, Check This and Good May Weep. I've no idea where this track came from. 

Tom Waits For No Man

Monday's Long Songs

Over at Ban Ban Ton Ton last week Dr. Rob wrote a post about various Sabres Of Paradise remixes, Selected Sabre Cuts. One of his selected cuts was the Sabres remix of Primal Scream's Jailbird, part of a 12" single released in June 1994. 

Jailbird was the second single from the album Give Out But Don't Give Up, an album released in March 1994 that was it's fair to say, a tad divisive. In 1991 Primal Scream with some production and remix assistance from Andrew Weatherall and Hugo Nicolson as well contributions from The Orb and Jah Wobble released Screamadelica, an album that saw Primal Scream go day- glo acid house, long haired converts to the new sound (although the album contained some more trad Scream rock music too in the shape of the Jimmy miller produced Moving On Up and the strung out ballad Damaged). They followed it with the Screamadelica 12", Moving On Up plus the album's title track, a huge piece of symphonic wide screen acid house and a beautifully downbeat cover of Dennis Wilson's Carry Me Home. When the band returned in 1994 they had gone full on Rolling Stones, first with Rocks and then Jailbird (which opens Give Out...). The album came with a Confederate flag on the cover (a William Eggleston photo) and got the band the tag 'Dance Traitors'. Having rewritten what an indie guitar band could do on Screamadelica they went into reverse and indulged their Rolling Stone fantasies. At this point some of the Scream were living like Keith Richards and if you live like Keef long enough, you'll start writing like Keef. 

I didn't take to Give Out But Don't Give Up when it came out. I was in the Dance Traitors camp although I liked Rocks just because it was so brazen. In 1994 I wasn't too fussed about bands who wanted to be in 1973. If I wanted to listen to Sticky Fingers I'd put Sticky Fingers on. Some years later I found it to be a better album than I did at the time but in 1994 it was too retro, too backwards looking. 

The remixes on the other hand were where the action might be- after all Mr Weatherall had played such a key role on Screamdelica that surely the Weatherall remixes of any of the Give Out... tracks would be what we wanted. The Jailbird 12" was highly anticipated in this household and when I got it home and put it on, there was again, a sense of 'this is not what I expected..' about the pair of Sabres Of Paradise remixes clad in a bright red sleeve shot of Throb live on stage, guitar and crotch plus amp and Confederate flag. The first of the two Sabres remixes was this one...

Jailbird (Sweeney 2 Mix)

The songs drumbeat looped up and running for thirty seconds, then a squiggly distorted noise, presumably Throb or Innes' guitar amp. Huge single descending piano notes, slowed right down and then some organ doing the same. An oscillating synth line kicks in, similar to the theme tune from The Sweeney (presumably where the remix title came from). This is Jailbird gone slow mo, out of it, no longer higher than the sun but very much damaged. We were indeed a long way from home.

The second remix (and the one Rob chose for his post last week) was a big one, nearly thirteen minutes long and where Andrew, Jagz and Gary went fully in with the dub... 

Jailbird (Dub Chapter 3 Mix)

The Dub Chapter 3 remix took some getting my head around too. Now, thirty- one years later, it's an example of Andrew's genius, his way of taking a song and deconstructing it completely, taking one or two elements from the original and constructing something entirely new from it (something he'd done on Screamadelica with Loaded and Come Together). 

Dub Chapter 3 is long, dubbed out and full of production tricks that the three Sabres had been honing during '93/ 94. Echo, FX, rattling drum machine loops, a three note synth part, acres of time and space, whole galaxies of time and space, and eventually, half way through something from the original song turns up, not one of Throb's guitars but a snatch of Bobby's vocal used as a sound rather than a voice. It's an epic Sabres Of Paradise remix, with King Tubby and Lee Perry was the inspiration, a million miles from Screamdelica and a million miles from Jailbird too. 

Further remixes were on the 12", one from Kris Needs and one by The Dust Brothers (later Chemical Brothers) and (I'm Gonna) Cry Myself Blind single had remixes from Portishead and Kris Needs again, but none of them go anywhere near what Sabres did with Dub Chapter 3. Stick it on a playlist/ CD/ mixtape along with the Sabres Gaelic dub remix of Peace Together's Be Still and the Squire Black Dove Rides Out version of One Dove's Breakdown, both ten minutes long and both from '93, and Sabres own productions Edge 6, Return Of Carter, Ysaebud and RSD, and you've got Sabres In Dub, a Sabres Of Paradise album that never was. 

I Wanna Be

Justin Robertson's recent dub excursions, both his remixes and his own productions, have been first rate. He's kept that winning streak going with a pair of dubbed out versions of Fluke's I Wanna Be under his Five Green Moons name (the Five Green Moons album Moon 1 was one of my favorites of 2024). 

I Wanna Be (Five Green Moons Dub) is a world of deep bass, crashing drums, rattling rimshots and FX, unfolding over eight glorious dubbed out minutes- groove, space and echo. You can get the remix and the dub- there isn't much between them- at Bandcamp. 

Fluke's re- emergence last year was a welcome return. The original version of I Wanna Be came out a week before the Five Green Moon ones and is very much in familiar Fluke territory- throbbing, pulsing, widescreen progressive techno with Jon Fugler's vocals up front, 'I wanna be/ The very best me I can be'. 

Desert

We went to the desert twice during our trip to Morocco. On each occasion it was a mind blowing and profound experience. The first excursion was to a pool resort on the edge of the Sahara. We sunned ourselves, had some more delicious Moroccan food and looked out into the desert, looking at the ridges and wadi, the endless shale and rock extending into the distance. My brother- in- law Harvey and I took a wander out of the resort and into the desert. We didn't go too far for obvious reasons. It was pretty humbling...

The second visit was the following evening, a trip further into the Sahara to see the sunset and then have a meal and enjoy some evening entertainment from local musicians. The drive out there was an experience in itself, turning off the road and onto a dust track that went on and on, over bridges that crossed dried out river beds, past camels and quad biking, tents and partially constructed/ falling down buildings, down a dip that I wouldn't have attempted in a minibus, round some tight bends, eventually arriving at our desert destination. The view from my seat through the van's tinted windows presented me this shot...

And then this one with some camel riders appearing over the horizon...

I don't know about you but my childhood was peppered with deserts- Indian Jones films, TV, books, comics, pop videos, Silk Cut and Turkish Delight adverts, Lawrence of Arabia (in 1981 when I was eleven years old there was a fancy dress party. Most of the eleven year olds went as Dr. Who, characters from Star Wars or Adam Ant. I went as Lawrence of Arabia- I was that kind of eleven year old). To be out in the Sahara and see camels (admittedly ridden by tourists) coming into view over the ridge was jaw dropping. The desert provokes a genuine sense of awe- it's vast and ancient, it will be there forever, long after we're all gone, it continues to grow each year (as Manchester's New Fast Automatic Daffodils noted on their epic 1990 single Big)...

Big

Once we arrived at our destination we followed our guide up a hill to a ridge of rocks where we waited for the sunset. Staring out into the desert as the sun began to dip was something else, an experience that's difficult to put into words- the immensity of the desert, the feeling of being a very small part of everything, the lives of people who have survived in this environment for thousands of years, the sense of staring into the past somehow... it was all very moving. As a friend commented on Facebook recently, 'deserts speak'.

I've got loads more photos of the desert, many of which will inevitably appear accompanying posts here over the upcoming weeks. 

In March 2019 Andrew Weatherall played at The Beta Hotel in Marrakech, an event hosted by Faber and involving David Keenan, Bugged Out and Heavenly recordings. Andrew's set was a dub set and I imagine his seriously dubbed out selections would have sounded pretty otherworldly in Marrakech. The set wasn't recorded but Sean Johnston unearthed Andrew's source CDs and shared them with The Flightpath Estate two eyars ago. The tracks were sequenced in the order they appear on Andrew's discs and uploaded to Mixcloud. You can listen to them here, two hours and eleven minutes of Moroccan Weatherdub at The Beat Hotel. 

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. 

2024 In Dub

The list making has started. Some of my blogging compadres have already pressed the Best Of 2024 button. At some point before Christmas I will post an end of year review and list. In the meantime, here's some of 2024's highest quality dubwise sounds wrapped up in an hourlong mix- there's much more that could have fitted into this mix too but in the end I wanted to keep it to under sixty minutes. Repetitive, bass heavy, echo- laden and spacious sounds for Sunday. 

2024 In Dub

• Coyote: Living In Heaven
• BTCOP: Sabre 540 (Rude Audio Remix)
• Five Green Moons: Garbage Van Exhaust
• Uj Pa Gaz: Roxy (Hardway Bros Meets Monkton Uptown)
• David Harrow and Little Annie: End Of Times (Rude Audio's Immutable Remix)
• Hugo Nicolson and David Harrow: Revolvalution (Dan Wainwright and Rude Audio VIP Remix)
• Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s: In Minus Shadows
• The Woodentops: Dream On (Rolo's Dub)
• Richard Norris: Fever Dub
• Coyote: OMG

In early December Coyote released a dub 12", two huge dub tracks,Living In Heaven and OMG,  that are in their own description 'light as a feather- heavy as lead'. 

Living in Heaven sounds like it be from side six of Sandinista!, a massive compliment in this household- it also has a touch of the Sabres Of Paradise Ysaebud single. Rattling bassline, echo and vocal sample. Coyote add some strings. Lovely deep stuff

Rude Audio's remix of BTCOP's Sabres 540 came out on Tici Taci in February, a remix that Rude Audio's Mark Ratcliff thinks his among his best work. He's right. 

Five Green Moons is Justin Robertson's latest venture, a post- punk/ pagan dub excursion, an eleven track album that continues to reveal new depths with each play. Justin appears later on too, with a track from the EP he released on the excellent Pamela label in April, four tracks all to some extent infused with dub. 

Uj Pa Gaz is from Tirana, Albania, a Tici Taci recording artist, producer and DJ. Roxy came out in late July and appears here in Hardway Bros Meets Monkton Uptown remix , heavy duty dub action from Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray. There is a very beguiling Middle Eastern melody line that plays out from the start, tumbling percussion, rimshots, delay and the deep hit of dub bass.

David Harrow has turned sixty this year and has celebrated with a release every month, a treasure trove of music emanating from his LA studio. His EP with On U legend Little Annie, the New York post- punk/ dub poet, had the original version of End Of Times, an instrumental, an acapella, and six remixes, two by Rude Audio- the Immutable and Protean Remixes. The Immutable is the dubbier of the two, a dubbed out rhythm underpinning Little Annie's poetry, 'this is not a happy hour'.

And Rude Audio turn up again, their third appearance here, now with the assistance of the wonderful Dan Wainwright. They took a track recorded by two former Andrew Weatherall cohorts- David Harrow and Hugo Nicolson and spun out into psychedelic dub complete with a brain melting ukulele solo. There are Sabres Of Paradise sounds scattered throughout it.

The Woodentops released a new album in April this year, Fruits From The Deep, a deep and rewarding trip under the sea. Dream On was one of the highlights, remixed in dub style by main Woodentop Rolo McGinty. Dream On (Rolo's Dub) starts and ends with an airplane taking off. Flying off to somewhere warm seems like a dream right now. 

Richard Norris' Bandcamp subscription service rewards on a monthly basis, a project that started with his Music For Healing ambient project but has blossomed into other areas, not least his Oracle Sound series of albums. Oracle Sound is (currently) three albums of superb, home grown dub. Fever Dub is from 2024's Oracle Sound Volume Three. 

Intercommunications

A new Dub Syndicate/ Adrian Sherwood release was announced yesterday, a brand new set of versions built on the rhythm tracks from tapes recorded by Adrian and Style Scott in the period between 1989 and 1996- a set of new dubs of old tracks, Adrian at the mixing desk pushing and pulling those faders around to reshape Dub Syndicate once more. The first cut from is this, Intercommunications, a low key and low slung four minutes and forty seconds of On U dub splendour. Intercommunications makes time disappear- it could easily be three times as long and not lose any of its charms. 

The album- Obscured By Version- is out next February along with a five CD box set anthology of Dub Syndicate from '89- '96 called Out Here On The Perimeter and single disc re- issues of four albums, Stoned Immaculate, Strike The Balance, Echomania and Ital Breakfast. Obscured By Version is available at all the usual places including Bandcamp. 

Back in 1985 Dub Syndicate released Tunes From The Missing Channel, a heavy duty collision of On U dub, Jamaican dub, Sherwood's industrial/ sampling, Ashanti Roy from The Congos and contributions from Jah Wobble and Keith Levene. Nine slices of classic mid- 80s On U Sound. I was going to post Ravi Shankar Pt. 1 but I've done that before- instead, try this... 'something nice is going to happen to your ears', as the man says.

The Show Is Coming

Friday/ Saturday Bandcamp Bonanza

Bandcamp Friday yesterday dropped a ton of new music into my Inbox and while today is a day late in terms of the benefits the artists get from the monthly Bandcamp Friday (Bandcamp waive their fees for one day a month) it's still worth posting some of the highlights- and yesterday was packed full of highlights.

We'll start with a 10: 40 remix of Puerto Montt City orchestra, a song called Hey You, out on Brighton's Higher Love label. By his own admission Jesse's work as 10: 40 has been an ongoing mission to make music/ remixes that channel Spiritualized and this one takes that to the nth degree- cue up Jason Spaceman's Lay Back In The Sun either before or after this and enjoy the sun drenched, blissed out ride....

                                                 

The song is a cover of 14 Iced Bears' Hay Fever, an 80s indie classic. You can get buy the 10: 40 remix of Puerto Montt City Orchestra at Bandcamp.

Next, another murky, underground, radiophonic, analogue synth missive from Pye Corner Audio, the first one for a few months, this one titled Texture Reels. Four minutes and forty five seconds of subterranean, kosmische reel to reel intensity. Get it at Bandcamp, pay what you want. 

Thirdly, Emma. Matty Ducasse records as Skylab. His Skylab International offshoot released a new single onto Bandcamp yesterday, a cover of Hot Chocolate's Emma. Mat plays and produces, Zoe Filthy- Rich songs. The drum machine pitter patters, chunky machine rhythms. The synths ping and blip. Hot Chocolate's mid- 70s pop- soul hit is darker than you might think. Producer Mickie Most asked singer Errol Brown for 'darkness and depth'. Errol gave him lyrics about lost childhood and suicide, a film star 'who can't keep living on dreams no more'. Mat and Zoe dredge up all of the pain and darkness that Errol piled into his lyrics. The EP is at Bandcamp, remix, edit and instrumental.

Lastly, Richard Norris whose Oracle Sound dub project has become essential listening. Richard has recorded three albums of dubs, available digitally and on vinyl via his subscription service. Recently he hosted his friend Jon Carter, who DJed at the Heavenly Social in the 90s and recorded as Monkey Mafia as well as under his own name. Richard wanted to show Jon some new kit. They ended up making a dub track called Ceefax- rocking drums and bass, space echo, melodica and an Ampp Freq live dub machine. The results come in three parts- Ceefax, a Norris dub and a Carter dub. All three are at Bandcamp. As I keep typing. 

You can buy all the music above for less than the price of a pint of lager in central London (and some central Manchester pubs). And while the lager may look briefly colder and more enticing, the music will last longer. 

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

Double Dub

Accidental/ ambient art- this is the detail of a large piece of plywood boarding up the windows of an empty shop in Chorlton with a small piece of black tape stuck in the centre. If I set out to paint something like this deliberately, it wouldn't be anywhere near as good as this. 

Richard Norris has taken a detour recently. Alongside his always excellent monthly twenty minute ambient/ deep listening excursion Music For Healing (the most recent release in that series is the autumnal Equinox 9) Richard is now making dub and has a new label to put it out under- Oracle Sound. The first volume of Oracle Sound is out in October with three deep dubs available to listen to in advance- Lightning Version, Birthday Dub and Sodium Haze. This is dub created from scratch, allowed to unfold over long periods of time, beds of echo and space, ambient/ drone backdrops, kicking rhythms and lovely warm bass. You can find Oracle Sound Volume 1 here. Subscribers to Richard's Bandcamp can get hold of the twenty minute long Shark Tooth Dub, experimental, ambient dub that glides on and on. 

More dub now, of the dubbing out already existing songs variety. Panda Bear and Sonic Youth's album of last year Reset has been dubbed out in full by Adrian Sherwood. The original album was a brightly coloured, sweeter than sugar blast of 60s psyche- pop. Sherwood has applied forty years of dub experience at On U Sound to the songs, re- imaging the songs, breaking them down, smothering them in dub FX, pulling basslines and drums/ percussion to the fore, adding new horns/ melodica lines and adding those cymbal crashes, whirrs, gurgles and thick bottom end.  I could post every/ any version from Reset In Dub but perhaps its best just to go for Getting To the Point Dub.

 

Weatherall Remix Friday Ten

Weatherall Remix Friday is back today after a month's absence. When walking down the Bridgewater Canal from Stretford Marina to Castlefield a few weeks ago this piece of graffiti jumped out at me. I'm not sure if it's a Two Lone Swordsmen tribute (they did sometimes style their name as 2LS) or a local artist's tag but either way it fits with today's Weatherall and Tenniswood remix. 

In 1998 Ganger released a trilogy of 12" singles, all called Trilogy, with remixes by Two Lone Swordsmen, Underdog and D across the three discs. The TLS remix is the one featured here today, a lo fi, dusty and abstract piece of music, all squiggles, bleeps, static, little guitar parts, echo and whatever else Andrew and Keith scooped up from the masters,  dropped in and FXed. It gathers a little pace eventually with percussion and a low key rumbling rhythm. A snare works its way to the fore, a mechanical TLS drum sound taking the lead while the noises and loops percolate around it. On it goes, passing the eight and then nine minute mark, an exercise in lo fi TLS submerged meandering, eventually coming to a halt one second shy of ten minutes. 

a [Untitled] (Two Lone Swordsmen Remix)

Ganger were a Glaswegian post- rock/ krautrock group who released several singles and an album between 1996 and 1999, eventually signing to Domino. 

Houghton festival took place last weekend. Back in 2017 Andrew appeared at the decks following Ricardo Villalobos and Craig Richards and played a two and a half hour dub set. It's available at Soundcloud and really is dub of the highest order, Mr Weatherall proving he could move between genres at will and with ease. 

This set, recorded at a festival in Anglesey in 2016, is another current favourite, a two hour wigged out ALFOS trip through the Andrew's record box taking in among others Johnny Sender, Secret Squirrel, Scott Fraser, Duncan Gray, Anzano, Club Bizarre, The Rimshooters, Mustang and a seriously good edit of Captain Beefheart, always for dancing, always building, up and ever onwards. I don't think anyone else could put together a set like this. Listen here. 

Bank Holiday Monday Long Song

 
Bob Marley remixed by Bill Laswell, ambient dub par excellence, for your bonus Bank Holiday anyone? You can't turn that kind of offer down can you?

Rebel Music (3 O'Clock Roadblock)

If the temptation of this languid, sumptuous, utterly absorbing ten minute Bill Laswell reworking of Bob Marley weren't enough, I could add that the source material for this mp3 is a pair of CDs Andrew Weatherall burned when he went to DJ at The Beat Hotel, two CDs of the highest quality dub you can imagine. The CDs were uncovered recently and shared with The Flightpath Estate and the mp3 of Rebel Music was copied from there to here- so there you have it, a coronation treat, your own Weatherall/ Marley/ Laswell ambient dub mp3.

The remix is originally from a 1997 album titled Dreams Of Freedom (Ambient Translations Of Bob Marley In Dub). I can recommend the whole thing, the entire eleven song album is an ambient dub treat- but the remix of So Much Trouble In the World, fading in with found sound and then hand drums and ambient orchestral strings is currently flipping my lid. 

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. 

Spacial Awareness

Back in August Stinky Jim sent me his latest album, Spacial Awareness, flying through the ether from the other side of the world. His 2021 album It's Not What It Sounds Like was a box of dub and reggae treats and delights, recorded in Auckland, New Zealand where Jim lives. 

Spacial Awareness is a further twelve tracks of dubby goodness with plenty more going besides. First song, Avant Grades, skanks and shuffles its way in, echo shifting the sounds around in the mix. Steam Fish, with a vocal from Nazamba recorded at Tuff Gong in Kingston, Jamaica, is superb stuff, a solid riddim and the righteous, gravel on toast voice of Nazamba on top. Cry For The Ute is faster, gliding around beautifully, with melodica and sampled voices dropped in and out. Owner Face, with wheezy keyboards and  shifts into mid 90s downtempo territory. A distorted horn riff turns up, early 80s punk funk style. Le Creak and Runs On The Board return to the dubbed out sounds (Runs On The Board as a very Sabres Of Paradise bassline at the fore). Quiet Spillage is funked up exotica/ dub, double bass, piano and hiss. Loose Carry has some wonderfully clanky steel drums over clattering rhythms and a stuttering synth bassline, the riffs swapping places with each other and then piling up, breaking down, and then being set loose again. Bolshy Ballet is further out, industrial dub rhythms and space echo, and then a lighter middle section with spaced out melody lines. Spacial Awareness closes with Sand Gestures, a vintage drum machine sound puffing away, computer game bleeps flying in and the skank returning, reminiscent of Nightmares On Wax and Warp's dubbier output, music for late night downtime. 

Spacial Awareness is at Bandcamp, and selected digital retailers. Jim's Stinky Grooves radio show is highly recommended, promising (and delivering) 'broad beats and robust rhythms'. Last year's It's Not What It Sounds Like is here, dubby sounds for difficult times. 

On One

Two pieces of On U Sound for the last day of March. First up the truly inspiring African Head Charge and a track from their 1981 album My Life In A Hole In The Ground, a groundbreaking record from Adrian Sherwood and Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah. Sherwood crated the minimal backing tracks. Bonjo laid down hand drums and percussion on top. Chants and FX were added, creating an unholy stew combining dub and African rhythms with anything else that fired their juices- free jazz, post- punk, whatever. 

Stebeni's Theme 

Second, fast forward to 1996 and Dub Syndicate, a long running collaboration between Sherwood and Style Scott, which by the mid- 90s resulted in an album of remixes from a variety of UK dub producers. Iration Steppas remixed 2001 Love- a clanging riff, discordant horns, echo and delay and then a massive rhythm track rides in. Eventually Allen Ginsberg appears saying 'let's all make love in London', a sample from a 1967 film about Swinging London that features Pink Floyd and a cast of thousands- Lennon, Jagger, The Small Faces, Vashti Bunyan, Chris Farlowe, Julie Christie and more in all their summer of '67 glory. 

2001 Love (Iration Steppas Remix)

Osaka Dub Tip

There are plenty of longform mixes to be listened to at the moment. This one is a previously uncirculated seventy minutes of Andrew Weatherall on a dub tip in Japan. In October 2000 Andrew was in Osaka along with Adrian Sherwood and Dry And Heavy. The set takes in Spectres by Gentleman Theif (see below), the skanking horns, bass and heavy whiff of smoke of Haile Unlikely by Steel leg & The Electric Dread, A Certain Ratio, Jah Warrior, a brain frying remix of a Jah Wobble and The Invaders Of The Heart, Holger Czukay's How Much Are They and Looks Like We're Shy One Horse by Colourbox (both fixtures in Andrew's record box), Jack Ruby All Stars and Butch Cassidy Sound System. 

Heavy hitting dub sounds, echo bouncing around, drop outs dropping out, horns floating in and out again, masses of bass and propulsive rhythms, this is very much a case of dub is where you find it- Andrew's ability to play a set, to select the records and make work them together, to construct the ebb and flow of a set and to make it seem effortless (when in fact it was the result of many hours of work and practice), was second to none. Find it at Mixcloud  (courtesy of Rude Audio's Mark Ratcliff). 

This is the opening track from Osaka Dub, Spectres by Gentleman Thief, a long and driving, almost gothic dub, exhilarating stuff with all sorts of echo and noises laid over the top of the rhythm- ideal for driving long distances to late at night. 

Spectres

Double Dub

David Harrow, now a resident of Los Angeles teaching music, has had a wide and varied career in music from the early 80s onwards. Starting out with Psychic TV and Anne Clark and then in 1988 hooking up with the On U Sound collective before going onto work with Andrew Weatherall (as Blood Sugar and Deanne Day), making techno as Technova and future jazz/ drum 'n' bass as James Hardway and finding time somewhere in the mid 90s to write Billie Ray Martin's worldwide hit Your Loving Arms. He has been drip feeding music through Bandcamp recently, the most recent being a three track release called Melodica Session. Made up of three dub tracks- AtyipcalDub, GadgetDub and WaimeaDub- Melodica Session is a dub joy, modular synth rhythms and lovely, snaking melodica lines on top. Really smart modern dub from a man who has been steeped in it for several decades. Listen and buy here. You won't regret it, promise.  

Adrian Sherwood is On U Sound's mixing desk maestro and boss, the man for whom rhythm and delay is an artform. Sherwood's back catalogue as producer and remixer takes in some harder industrial sounds and a dash of mid- 80s electro too but it's the dub we're here for today. Back in 2010 the Test Pressing website kicked off a series of longer mixes in tribute to the great producers and began with a forty- five minute compilation of Sherwood tracks put together by Apiento and Tim H. I found the Sherwood one recently while digging around in the hard drive looking for something else and you'll be hard pressed to find a better soundtrack to three quarters of an hour today. 

The Producers Series Volume One

• African Head Charge: Pursuit
• Dub Syndicate: Ravi Shankar Pt. 1
• African Head Charge: Heading For Glory
• African Head Charge: No, Don't Follow Fashion
• Doctor Pablo: Doctor Who
• Creation Rebel: African Space
• African Head Charge: Dinosaur's Lament
• Dub Syndicate: Night Train
• African Head Charge: Throw It Away
• African Head Charge: Stebeni's Theme

Conquering Dub

Dub for Tuesday from Yabby You and The Prophets, the flipside to his debut single Conquering Lion. The album, also called Conquering Lion, was released in 1975, widely seen as one of the classics of roots era, with a cast of players including Tommy McCook, Aston Barrett, Earl Chinna Smith and Augustus Pablo. Incredibly Yabby and the band recorded it onto two track- one track for bass and drums and one for organ, with additional instruments dubbed on at Tubby's after. The original album has been re- released this year in expanded form with the original ten cuts and a further twelve dubs and versions. Essential roots reggae, full of the political, righteous and devotional fervour of mid- 70s Jamaica. You can buy the whole thing in a variety of formats here. 

Conquering Dub

Monday's Long Song

How about an unofficial dub version of Loaded to start the week? Peter Fonda starting us off with his speech sampled from The Wild Angels, 'We want to be free... we wanna get loaded, we wanna have a good time', but then he gets slowed dooooown to a halt. A melodica floats in and the skank takes over. There are some 'na na nas' towards the end. No idea who is responsible for this but I'm glad they did it. 

Loaded Chalice

Edit: Jake (and Discogs) agree that the artist behind this is Nuffwish. 

Scientific

Making it to the end of the week feels like some kind of small achievement- the darkest time of the year, the virus rampaging around us and a long way to go before we start to come out of this can make everything feel a bit hopeless at the moment. Take your victories where you can. It's Friday, another week chalked off. Dub always improves things, always lightens the load. 

In 1980 The Scientist released his first album, The Best Dub Album In The World. Scientist, real name Hopeton Brown, grew up loving electronics and landed a job at King Tubby's Kingston studio (Tubby would have celebrated his 80th birthday next week had he lived). Scientist worked his way up through the ranks and in 1980 put out his modestly titled debut album, recorded with Sly and Robbie on the bass and the drums at Channel One and then mixed at Tubby's. The bass and drums are perfect throughout, the bubbling bass rhythms playing off against the splashy cymbals and rimshots. Organ comes and goes. Guitars are fed through FX units and sent spinning into space, all produced by a master of the art. Ten tracks, , nine of them under three minutes long but not feeling too short, and you can pick any one of them to demonstrate that the title of the record isn't far off. Try this one...

Scientific