Anybody have some insight here? I'm starting to explore beyond Marley, Tosh, etc.
Stuff like Lee Perry, Scientist, Toots and the Maytals, The Upsetters, etc...
I'm looking for about 5 - 10 of the genres finest, preferably from 70s to early 80s (and maybe 60s if that exists.). Cheers!
If it isn't Krautrock, it's krap.
"And it's only the giving
That makes you what you are" - Ian Anderson
Start with Augustus Pablo, Frankie - especially the classic King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown. I'm a big fan of Keith Hudson - Pick A Dub is a perfect place to start. It was reissued by Blood & Fire in the 90s - anything on their label will be good. The Blood & Fire samplers are all excellent. More recently virtually everything that Adrian Sherwood produces for On-U Sound is worth checking out. I like Dub Syndicate, but you may also want to check out the impressive new album by Horace Andy.
Cheers Robin. Will check out!
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
-- Aristotle
Nostalgia, you know, ain't what it used to be. Furthermore, they tells me, it never was.
“A Man Who Does Not Read Has No Appreciable Advantage Over the Man Who Cannot Read” - Unknown
Sly and Robbie put out some excellent dub in the late 70s into the 80s - Sly played electronic drums on some of it that not everyone likes. For me anything with their names on it is worth hearing.
If you want more modern any of Bill Laswell's dub albums that I've heard have been great.
Been a fan of Jamaican music since my late teens...Prince Buster et al. Later stuff would be Black Uhuru.
Dave Sr.
I prefer Nature to Human Nature
Is this the most famous dub track? It was the first I heard, anyway:
I like this one too- very sparse, massive amounts of reverb:
I was going to suggest him too: Start with Augustus Pablo
Dub: you might check out Bill Laswell, his different combinations and configurations gets pretty diverse so it's hard to say where to start. Though that Lost in Translation album is a pretty good place.
Last edited by hippypants; 05-01-2022 at 05:42 PM.
Hallucinogen in dub - mixed by Ott
If you're willing to explore something that is by no means authentic or Jamaican, but is some dub fun, try this album by Gov't Mule:
We're trying to build a monument to show that we were here
It won't be visible through the air
And there won't be any shade to cool the monument to prove that we were here. - Gene Parsons, 1973
Thanks for all suggestions guys. I'm into checking anything out, this subgenre is new to me so you know how that goes
Gregory Isaacs has (had) an awesome voice and some awesome songs, like most reggae artists he dabbled in the Dub Mode...
https://youtu.be/tBL1tKnr_1s
You can basically type in any reggae artists name followed by Dub in YouTube, that should keep you busy for months...lol
These Studio One anthologies are pretty good for hearing a bunch of different artist:
Listened to Bill Laswell Sacred System Chapter One and Version 2 Version - both have some really deep grooves on them.
Around 1979 or 80, Brian Eno did a lecture tour of (at least) the US on the subject "The Studio as a Musical Tool". He did his lecture at UC Berkeley, where I was then a student, and among the many things he said that I remember to this day, one was this:
Dub music is what happens when a modern electronic music studio falls into the hands of people with no preconceptions about how to use it.
(He also said that string arrangers were the worst thing ever to happen to pop/rock music, with which -- with exception -- I heartily agree.)
I've seen all cruel people bashing heads each day so sadistic I'm on my way.
Interesting. Whether the final product (album) is an "experimentation" or not, I think the final product is all that matters. The journey/methodology is (or can be) almost irrelevant. If you think about every piece ever written/recorded by anybody, they were all essentially "experiments" with no guarantee of success - even Eno's stuff. Those remarks by him reek of arrogance to me. But I still dig his stuffOriginally Posted by Sturgeon's Lawyer
.
If it isn't Krautrock, it's krap.
"And it's only the giving
That makes you what you are" - Ian Anderson
I don't think he was being arrogant at all. He was clearly very impressed by dub music and thought it a particularly good example of what the studio could do for musicians. Remember his topic: the studio as a musician's tool, as an enabler of music that could not have been produced any other way. (I think he mentioned "Bohemian Rhapsody," but I'm not sure; my half-memory is that it was not in glowing terms.)
He also mentioned "skysaw guitar", a technique that -- at that time -- he had used on two songs: his own "Skysaw", featuring Phil Manzanera, and Bowie's "Red Sails". The technique is to get the guitarist to play three solos, one in a low register, one in a high register, and one in between, and then switch madly between them on the mixing board to create something impossible.
Except...a teenaged guitarist wrote to Manzanera, saying that he had figured out the fingering for all but one bit of "Skysaw," and asked how he had done that one part. So "impossible" is apparently relative.
I've seen all cruel people bashing heads each day so sadistic I'm on my way.
And now enough of that sidetrip. No discussion of reggae is complete without a mention of Jimmy Cliff, so here's something by him:
And, wandering farther afield, the Clash did some dub experiments; how successful they were is debateable:
I've seen all cruel people bashing heads each day so sadistic I'm on my way.
I took Eno to be speaking positively about the early dub producers - as if the lack of preconceptions, the lack "this is the (right) way to do it", was a major factor in the radical new soundscapes they produced. They were also working with relatively limited technology, so that pushed them to be even more creative with what was to hand.Interesting. Whether the final product (album) is an "experimentation" or not, I think the final product is all that matters. The journey/methodology is (or can be) almost irrelevant. If you think about every piece ever written/recorded by anybody, they were all essentially "experiments" with no guarantee of success - even Eno's stuff. Those remarks by him reek of arrogance to me. But I still dig his stuff
I'd also possibly take a different line on the "journey" point - as you'll doubtless know, dub plates were "versions" of the "original" tunes (or rhythms), so hearing the one after the other would be natural - so you get a sense of how the one "haunts" the other. A great example of this is the series of versions of Police & Thieves that Lee Perry made from the Junior Murvin original that he produced. Each one takes the song a bit further away from its original incarnation.
My bad on the Eno remarks....I took as if he thought it was shit and they didn't know what they were doing
It's hardly "traditional" but if you want to check out something that combines dub sensibilities with free improv, you might wanna check out Jah Wobble and Evan Parker's Passage to Hades. Or not.
OK, bye.
Not really an area of particular interest to me normally, though I did like this collaboration:
They have an album out that I enjoy.
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