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

Small Axe

I've been watching the Small Axe series of films on BBC, five films by Steve McQueen looking at the experiences and lives of black Britons, especially the West Indian communities of West London. The writing and direction are superb as are the performances of the cast. The first film, Mangrove, over two hours long, tells the story of the Mangrove Nine, racist policing in the late 1960s, institutional racism and the growth of black activism. It's a film that boils the blood in it's portrayal of the police harassment of Mangrove café owner Frank Crichlow and subsequent the court case and it's a visceral and powerful piece of film making.

The second film in the series is Lovers Rock, a different take on the lives of black West Indian immigrants and their children. It's set in Notting Hill, where a blues party unfolds almost in real time, from the removal of carpets and the furniture from the front room to make space for the dancers to the sound system setting up while three of the women cook goat curry in the kitchen while singing Janet Kay's Silly Games. Early on in the evening the front room fills with young women, dressed up and wanting to dance. The dancing to Silly Games and the spontaneous singing of the song by the crowd after the 7" single has finished is superbly done, music (reggae specifically) as a joyous, communal experience. 

The film is a celebration of these people's lives but it doesn't flinch from the racism that's never far away in 1975. Lead character Martha briefly exits the party to follow her friend who's just left but goes only a few yards up the road before being racially abused by a group of young white men. She returns to the blues party, McQueen showing how the black community, excluded from the area's pubs and clubs due to the colour of their skins, are forced to make their own entertainment and run their own parties. 

The second half of the film kicks in after an altercation in the garden between three of the characters. The sound system moves onto harder and tougher tunes and the men crowd the dancefloor. The Revolutionaries 1976 single Kunte Kinte is spun, a rocking dub, and the crowd demand a rewind. McQueen's direction of the dancing is incredible and the intensity of both the scenes involving the sound system and the dancers are incredible. If you haven't already, watch both. 

Kunte Kinte (Version) 

Virus And Tantra

David Harrow, resident of Los Angeles and purveyor of fine dub since the days of On U Sound in the late 80s, has been unleashing weekly releases into the ether, digital dub with acres of wide open space and pressure. The latest one, PurpleCircle (Virus Dub 5), is a delight and is on Bandcamp here. The previous week was Maskup (Virus Dub 4), all smoke, echo, bass and melodica. Nod your head here. They're a dollar each, roughly 98 pence for those of us in the UK. 

Less laid back but just as transportative is David's work in the mid- 90s as Technova (recording for Andrew Weatherall's Sabres Of Paradise and Emissions Audio Output labels. Andrew and David began to work together after bumping into each other London's clubs. When David said he had some music recorded Andrew said he'd put it out on Sabres without even hearing it). Tantra, a 1994 12" single and album, is especially good. This is the full twenty one minutes of Tantra, a late night, post club dub techno excursion.

On the B-side Innersphere remix Tantra as Tantrum, ten minutes of trancey- techno workout. Nothing wrong with some techno for Tuesday is there? Certainly puts your head in a different place and shifts things up a gear.

Tantrum (Innersphere Mix)

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.

Pounding System

Not far to the north of where we live lies the River Mersey. The riverbanks on both sides are walkable and when you cross by the footbridge up near Ashton- on- Mersey golf club there are a maze of paths that wind their way through floodplains and fields, either east to the water park and then Chorlton or west through to Urmston. Much of this land is known as an Ees- Stretford Ees, Chorlton Ees and Sale Ees. Ees is an archaic word meaning a piece of land liable to flood or water meadow. The footpaths cut their way through the Ees, surrounded by trees, hedges and meadows. The M60 and its link roads are all interwoven but are very quiet at the moment. Usually from our back garden you can hear the M60. At the moment you can hear the birds and the occasional rattle of the tramline, a mile in the other direction. Our daily bout of exercise sometimes takes us along the riverbank, especially in the evening when it's much quieter and social distancing is easier and less fraught, and through these lanes and pathways. As the sun dips out west beyond Irlam and Warrington you can sometimes get to witness a spectacular sunset. This is one of the positive things lockdown is giving us- finding local moments of beauty, even in our fairly unromantic and ordinary parts of south west Manchester, and this is now life in 2020- taking the time under these restrictions to appreciate what's on your doorstep.

Here is some dub splendour to match the sunset above from Dub Syndicate, a key part of the On U Sound stable. I was going to post the majestic, far out sounds of Ravi Shankar (Pt 1) but it turns out I've posted that before, back in 2017. Pounding System was the opening track on their 1982 album The Pounding System. The bass and drums/percussion are so precise but so loose in Sherwood's hands. The horns seem to rise up from the mixing desk, levitating. Skanking guitar parts pop in and out. Every element in it's own space and with room to breathe.

Pounding System

Declaration Of Dub

The fourteen tracks that make up King Tubby's 1975 album Dub From The Roots came as some kind of epiphany to me back in the 90s. Spread across two sides of vinyl the album showcases Tubby's skills and prowess at the mixing desk. The whole album is swamped in reverb and delay, a wash of sound effects with the bass riding on top or underneath). Drums and percussion bounce around, flourishes of organ and guitar drop in and out. Rimshots ricochet between the speakers. Backing vocals get pushed up front briefly. Timeless, outer space music.

Declaration Of Dub

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.

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

Strike The Balance

Some On U Sound heaviness for Friday, from 1989's Dub Syndicate album Strike The Balance, a masterpiece of late 80s Sherwood dub production. This song is proper rootsy dub, all bass and echo and delay with Bim Sherman singing and a freaked out metallic Dalek vocal running through it. Towards the end some woodwind floats over the top. The rest of the album rocks too, the chanting of Hey Ho, a cover of Je T'Aime with Shara Nelson and closer I'm The Man For You Baby. Like most of Adrian Sherwood's back catalogue, it is worth shelling out for.

Mafia