At 8:47 PM +0100 1/15/0, Jan Frode Hansen wrote:
quoted 1 line Any suggestion of what I should pick up is greatly appreciated.
>Any suggestion of what I should pick up is greatly appreciated.
First, BEWARE of anything made in the 1990's (and after) using "dub" in its
title; since the word has become fashionable, much rather pathetic and
quite undubelicious twaddle has been slithering around under the name.
Second, try the early "classics" to understand whence dub is derived and to
get a sense of what the term meant before marketing hacks got hold of it.
Here, I recommend a sampling of the "rootsy" reggae-based dub recordings
from Jamaica in the 1970's, many of which have been popping up on the
wonderful Blood & Fire, Pressure Sounds, and other reissue labels, for
example:
King Tubby & Prince Jammy "Dub Gone 2 Crazy" (Blood & Fire)
The Channel One studio hosted many amazing sessions, and many of the great
players - for example Sly (Dunbar) and Robbie (Shakespeare) - turn up on
countless records. Then again, many reggae folk turned up in England, and
in the early 1980's labels like Adrian Sherwood's On-U Sound were
reinventing reggae and dub in the colder northern setting, retaining a
reggae basis but adding the more industrial atmospheres of labels like
Factory Records (itself highly dub-influenced) and players from rock
groups. Here I would recommend:
African Head Charge "My Life in the Hole in the Ground" & "Environmental
Studies" (both On-U Sound)
Creation Rebel "Psychotic Jonkanoo" (On-U Sound - with John Lydon of PIL!)
Prince Far I "Cry Tuff Dub Encounter Chapter 3" (Pressure Sounds - with
David Toop)
Third, listen to the early rock infusion of dub into:
PIL "Metal Box" (aka "Second Edition" on Virgin or Warner Bros)
Dif Juz "Soundpool" (4AD) and "Who Says So?" (Red Flame)
The Wake "Something Outside" (Factory Benelux)
Section 25 "Always Now" & "The Key of Dreams" (Factory or Les Temps Modernes)
and more generally Can and Cabaret Voltaire.
Fourth, listen to the newer streams of dub based on techno and other
electronic musics. For example, the "ambient dub" of:
Orb (everything)
Divination "Ambient Dub Volume 2 - Dead Slow" (Subharmonic)
Loop Guru "The Third Chamber" (North South)
Pete Namlook & Bill Laswell "Psychonavigation 1" (Fax)
Pre Fade Listening "Way Back Home" (Different Drummer)
Drome "The Final Corporate Colonization of the Unconscious" (Ninja Tone)
Woob "1" & "2" (Em:t)
Scorn "Evanescence" (Earache)
Or the more digitized experimental dub of:
Pole "1" & "2" (Kiff or Matador)
Kit Clayton "Nek Sanalet" (Scape)
Or the new roots dub, presented beautifully on:
Twilight Circus Dub Soundsystem "Dub Plate Selection" (M)
and more mutantly on:
Rhythm & Sound w/ Tikiman "Showcase" (Burial Mix)
Or the rock groups influenced by dub in some way or other: Pan American,
Transient Waves, Hood, Bark Psychosis, Bowery Electric, Tortoise, and many
others. And that does not even mention drum & bass, which in many ways is
a mutation of dub.
Meanwhile, be suspicious of any compilations released on non-reggae labels
with "dub" in their titles, as most are either lame repackagings of poor
imitations or inappropriate recontextualizations of unrelated styles. The
"Macro Dub Infection" and "Ambient Dub" series on Virgin and Beyond,
respectively, are quite lovely but not really very illuminating as to the
nature of dub itself.
np - Red House Painters (3rd)
Joshua / Thermal / Boxman [Hako Otoko] label
mailto:thermal@wenet.net
http://www.wenet.net/~thermal/
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