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DUB GONE 2 CRAZY - In Fine Style 1975-1979
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bafcd 013
Artist: King Tubby, Prince Jammy
Label: Blood and Fire
DUB GONE 2 CRAZY - In Fine Style 1975-1979
IN STOCK. ON SALE NOW.
Track listing:
1. Dub Of Rights
2. A Living Version
3. The Poor Barber
4. Higher Ranking
5. A Heavy Dub
6. A Stalawatt Version
7. King Tubby's In Fine Style
8. African Sounds
9. Version Of Class
10. Channel One Under Heavy Manners
11. Breaking Up Dubwise
12. Channel Get Knockout
13. Channel Is A Joker
14. Drums Of Africa
This companion volume to 1994's Dub Gone Crazy set again features Bunny Lee rhythms, impeccably played by the crack sessioneers known as the Aggrovators, and getting the sonic sculpting treatment from Prince Jammy and King Tubby himself. Includes the magnificent and ultra rare 'King Tubby's In Fine Style'.
One thing that makes these pioneering Jamaican dub tracks from 1975-79 so outstanding is their sense of an outcome unknown in advance, probably even to their creators. This sense of improvisatory alertness of having to find an immediate solution, makes them sound still fresh and alive today. A microscope is applied to a particular part of the mix, blows it out of all proportion and then pulls it back, revealing it to be merely an element of a much greater set of changes and relationships. The fact that it all takes place in real-time adds tangible levels of adrenaline. Tunes such as 'Dub Of Rights', 'The Poor Barber' and 'In Fine Style' opt for maximum disruption to the basic rhythm; showers of rimshots cut across the beat, giant thunderclaps of spring-reverb, the mix twisting and bulging around cyclical hi-hat patterns. They exist at a moment where virtual chaos co-exists with an intuitive sense of dramatic logic, combining fragments into electrifying narratives. The other factor which gives these tracks such power, too often neglected, is the fantastic instrumental playing on the rhythm tracks. On mixes like 'Higher Ranking', 'Breaking Up Dubwise' and 'Channel One Under Heavy Manners' the producers are careful to allow the rhythm section to speak a little more freely, and the FX are less dramatic, serving a more decorative function. But even here harmony and song form are virtually abandoned, and little remains of the original tunes but the occasional ghost of a melody, the relic of a horn arrangement. And all these tracks are relics too; fractured remains of a pop music whose unique social and technological circumstances are long gone. Even collected together on this smart compilation they remain glimpses and refractions rather than comprehensive documents - a sense of fragmentation which seems entirely appropriate. While it is nice to have these archaeologys, let's not forget that such neatness and clarity was not in any way where this pragmatic, functional, ad hoc music came from or what it was really about. The dark spaces and intrigues at the centre of these tracks speak of a very different set of priorities. Richard Scott - The Wire, August '96
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