reggae round up for March

 

Paper 

There is a new issue of Riddim Magazine out, with Vybz Kartel on the cover and a free CD. It is the 3rd issue but is confusingly titled issue 1. The actual first issue has now sold out and can be downloaded as a pdf from their website. Go deh!

Vinyl

Lots of good tunes coming out as well, but I can’t be arsed reviewing them all here.

  • Sizzla has done a nice tune on top of a loop from Errol Dunkley’s “Little Way Different” (which I quoted below).
  • Confessions riddim.
  • Niney has redone “Wolf & Leopards” with Capleton on it.
  • Bun Them riddim (aka Hot Milk).
  • Blood & Fire have released a batch of sevens of the original riddim of the Congos’ “Fisherman”.

Nice nice nice.

WTF?

According to the latest Dub Vendor catalogue, ex-T&GWU general secretary Bill Morris has recorded a version of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” in a dub-poet stylee.

HM Revenue & Customs are using the old Lee Perry instrumental “The Liquidator” in their radio adverts for tax credits. It would be very interesting to find out if they have licensed the tune direct from Scratch or are paying someone else…

VDU

Some good new blogs as well:

Distinctly Jamaican Sounds with tributes to Yellowman and Sister Nancy. Label scans galore.

Drtyshdws is also on a Nancy tip, along with a bit of Billy Boyo and John Holt. Audio!

The Clash Blogger from the man like Augui.

And not forgetting Roots From Yard.

And finally…

Bad man forward, bad man pull up.

The Easy Way to Falsify Your Credit Rating

Stewart Home – The Easy Way to Falsify Your Credit Rating (Sabotage Editions, 0954006380)

By my reckoning this booklet, published on 31st December 2005, is the 15th released by Sabotage Editions. It is part of a trilogy released to commemorate the demise of the International Standard Book Numbering system. Like many of its precursors it collects diverse articles, reviews and other writing by Stewart Home. So, as usual, a mixed bag – and all the better for that.

The highlight of this booklet is an extensive review of Horace Ove’s film Pressure which has recently be released on DVD by the British Film Institute. Ove’s film was I think the first attempt by a black director to show the black experience in London. It is fanatastic, not least because of the attention to detail in its documentation of the city’s people and places in the 1970s – all changed beyond recognition now. Home’s review places the film in its proper context – that of black power struggles in the UK, and of the institutionalised racism faced by its protagonists.

Melvin Peebles’ film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song (often credited as the first blaxploitation film) is given a similar, but much more critical treatment.

Stewart interviews writer Lynne Tillman at length about her work and the limitations of self-publishing vs being published.

“Pornographic Coding” is a joint paper by Home and Florian Cramer which covers the use of the word “fuck” in linux source code, sex in Stewart’s novels, the explosion of niche porn since the advent of the internet and calls for a shamanic, open source pornography. It is fucking mental.

Other contents include book reviews, an article on 9/11 and there is even some information of dubious value regarding the title of the booklet.

This is a great read and comes highly recommended to anyone whose interested was tweaked after reading this interview with Stewart which has been bigged up by bloggers such as Loki, Psychbloke, Effay et al.

64 pages. Available for £3.75 plus p&p from: BM Senior, London WC1N 3XX, England, UK.

Ariwa 81 Sessions

Various Artists – ARIWA 81 Sessions (Ariwa CD)

This CD is the first in a series which acts as a counterpart to the recent Method to the Madness compilation put out by Trojan. Tracks from the vaults which have either been completely ignored for years, or have achieved classic status and now instigate serious competition on ebay.

Ariwa set up in 1979 on a shoestring budget with a 4 track tape deck and lot of ideas. Despite being told not to bother with music after his first record by the usual purist cynics, Mad Professor built himself a fanbase from the off. 1981 was the year that Ariwa used their meagre profits to install a 16 track machine in the front room of their HQ at 19 Bruce Road, SE 25.

Aquizim are best known for their take of the classic soundsystem dubplate tune Kunte Kinte, which is included here (in a different mix to the Trojan comp) along with three of their other tunes. “The System” is a propah sufferah’s lament – London style. It is also 600% better than every song recorded by Crass which featured the word “system” in the shouty lyrics (i.e. everything they did). On a less “conscious” level, their tribute to a girl named Deidre makes me wonder about womankind in 1981 if they were knocking back a bloke with a voice like that.

Yeah – Lovers! The seemingly unrevivable sister-subgenre to Roots. Collectors have entirely bypassed Lovers Rock in the “15 year rule” (the point at which reggae can be repackaged for hipsters – see all the early digi ragga compilations?). Although I guess Soul Jazz have done a Studio One Lovers set, so perhaps there’s a 30 year rule for this stuff instead?

Needless to say, this music already has an audience which is unbothered by what the taste-makers deem to be the next big thing (or indeed about matrix numbers!). I’m sure Ariwa was driven as much by business sense as by love, and I’d be amazed if Davina Stone’s “Lonely” didn’t shift serious units back in the day. Her voice is clear as a bell and the song is tip top stuff, perfectly complemented by the tuff deejay version by Ranking Ann which follows it.

“Me and You” is a mad name for a group… “who is that record by?” but they’re sound enough. In fact they are completely sincere in their suggestion that they’re not looking for a casual affair and the tune makes me feel like I’m in a warm bath – even when the snow is coming down on the bus stop on the way to work. This is no mean feat.

I’ve never heard of Errol Sly before. Sorry Errol, but Google has let me down as well. Respect for recording “Tumbledown”, though. Massive tune, which finds me singing “If you’re going to run run run… you’re going to tumble down” at the most inappropriate moments in the office. And respect once again to Mad Prof for including an awesome extended version on this one which slides into a gorgeous dub mix.

All this and some nice sleevenotes which give a bit of biographical information on the artists as well. The first chapter in what promises to be an essential history lesson of a much underexposed part of UK Reggae.

Available on Ariwa LP (with 10 tracks) and CD (17 tracks!) from all good reggae stockists…

The Correct Way to Boil Water

Stewart Home – The Correct Way to Boil Water (Sabotage Editions, ISBN 0954006399)

By my reckoning this booklet, published on 26th December 2005, is the 14th released by Sabotage Editions. It is part of a trilogy released to commemorate the demise of the International Standard Book Numbering system. Like many of its precursors it collects diverse articles, reviews and other writing by Stewart Home. So, as usual, a mixed bag – and all the better for that.

Major articles this time include an extended look at psychedelia and the avant-garde, which takes in the connections with Lettrist cinema and exploitation movies, along with a large amount of insights gained from Stewart’s extensive research for his novel Tainted Love.

A number of books related to the legacy of of the Situationist International are reviewed with Stewart’s characteristic rigour, humour and lack of romanticism.

I found the large section dealing with Tony Wakeford’s reaction to the publication of the critical We Mean It Man: Punk Rock and Anti-Racism – or, Death in June Not Mysterious especially interesting. Indeed I would urge anyone with a passing interest in that somewhat jaded end of industrial culture to read both pieces.

Those interested in more progressive occultural currents will recall the feature in Rapid Eye on performance artist Andre Stitt. Stewart’s thoughts on Stitt are included here, linking his work with shamanism.

This is a great read and comes highly recommended to anyone whose interested was tweaked after reading this interview with Stewart which has been bigged up by bloggers such as Loki, Psychbloke, Effay et al.

64 pages. Available for £3.75 plus p&p from: BM Senior, London WC1N 3XX, England, UK.

Rewired For Dub



Horace Andy, Mad Professor & Joe Ariwa – Rewired For Dub (Ariwa CD)

Horace Andy’s From The Roots album for Ariwa was apparently such a stormer that people have been begging for this dub set for some time now. Mad Professor gives the people what they want, they just have to wait a while sometimes!

I’ve not heard the original LP, but that doesn’t detract in any way from enjoying this – in fact I love discovering the full vocal after having caned its “shadow” in the dub for ages – there’s a real jolt from hearing those chopped up sylables forming actual words and sentences…

So, to business then. FFWD to Dub is Horace Andy coming in and out of the same riddim to Aisha’s stone cold classic “The Creator”. The Coolest Dub really benefits from the instrumentation and vocals being stripped right back and the live horn section gliding over the top of it all… A nice bit of sax on there – and it isnt often you’ll hear me say that.

Dub Her For Me sounds like it’s on a particularly teasing rendition of the hot milk riddim which leaves Horace stranded in the echo chamber, not able to tell her his feelings because Mad Prof keeps chucking in his entire armoury of effects. One of those dubs which has your entire mind reaching out for the 30% of the track that you know is just around the corner, but always stays out of reach. A load of producers could learn a lot from listening to this one…

Nuff tricks still under wraps in the Mad Professor’s lab. Cavernous harsh bass on some tracks, warm soothing bass on others. Vocals telling a story on some tracks, voices reduced to jittery alien noises on others… “street every day – the youth congregate… gah/gah/gah/gah/gah/…..”

The variety isn’t just down to production though, Ariwa have gone to the trouble of working with some serious names to back up a legend like Horace Andy. Mafia and Fluxy are UK stalwarts who don’t get the credit they deserve, but Sly and Robbie also lay down some of the tracks, and it seems like legendary vocal group Knowledge (see reissues on Blood & Fire and Makasound of their 70s material) serve as backing vocalists?

This is getting serious rotation ’round here at the moment – check it out if you get the chance.

Available on Ariwa LP (with 10 tracks) and CD (14 tracks!) from all good reggae stockists…

The Intelligent Person’s Guide to Changing a Light Bulb

Stewart Home – The Intelligent Person’s Guide to Changing a Light Bulb (Sabotage Editions ISBN 0954006321)

By my reckoning this booklet, published on 25th December 2005, is the 13th released by Sabotage Editions. It is part of a trilogy released to commemorate the demise of the International Standard Book Numbering system. Like many of its precursors it collects diverse articles, reviews and other writing by Stewart Home. So, as usual, a mixed bag – and all the better for that.

I particularly enjoyed Stewart’s extended review of Luther Blissett’s Q, which takes in some sideswipes at previous reviewers, Emmett Grogan’s Ringolevio and the legacy of Italian left-communist Amadeo Bordiga. A left-communist analysis makes an all-too-necessary entrance into Stewart’s scathing review of Martin Amis’ Koba The Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million. I have read Q, and have no intention of reading “Koba”. That Stewart manages to write engagingly about both of them says a great deal.

Other books reviewed more briefly (but just as insightfully) include Bill Drummond’s (post-K Foundation) How To Be An Artist, John Barker’s (post-Angry Brigade) Bending the Bars: Prison Stories, Darius James’ Negrophobia and Brendan Mullen et al’s Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times and Short Life of Darby Crash and The Germs.

There are a couple of interview-esque pieces with Stewart himself – “Things I Was Once Asked by a Journalist” is possibly previously unpublished, given his answers:

Which books do you think should be given the Hollywood treatment?

“Eclipse and Re-Emergence of the Communist Movement by Jean Barrot and Francois Martin directed by David Cronenberg would be a real corker – a Battleship Potemkin for the twenty-first century. I’d also love Spike Lee adapt Henry Flynt’s Blueprint For a Higher Civilization for the wide screen.”

“26 Things to do with a Pedagogal Paradigm” is an a-z list with everything from ambiguity to zeitgeist via Dracula and Trans Europe Express.

Other articles cover topics such as Stewart’s preferred funeral arrangements, 9/11, why Tony Hancock was the ultimate avant-garde artist, the euro and a brutal slagging of Sam Taylor-Wood.

This is a great read and comes highly recommended to anyone whose interested was tweaked after reading this interview with Stewart which has been bigged up by bloggers such as Loki, Psychbloke, Effay et al.

64 pages. Available for £3.75 plus p&p from: BM Senior, London WC1N 3XX, England, UK.