An unnerving ride on Yabby You’s almighty Conquering Lion rhythm — a darkly atmospheric tale of pestilence and the dark arts, our kind of Christmas Carol. Crowning a great year for Digikiller, this is essential.

Ace, driving, digital roots, with a lethal dub.
Reggae veteran Dennis Fearon lends a hand.

Rudie will recognise Bobby Sarkie from The Tartans and The Immortals (not to mention his solo roots killer Better World). His singing here is expertly reined in by desolation, numbness and regret, over a hollowed-out, mesmeric rhythm, with some nasty synth-work and nonchalantly brilliant effects on the drums. The vocal cut is more than a minute longer than the version which opens the Jah Son Invasion album with such a flourish; and the mix is different, with more prominent keys, and toned-down bass. It’s previously unreleased, like the dub.
The B-side is booby-trapped with sensational instrumental excursions on Junior Delahaye’s Working Hard For The Rent Man and Jackie Mittoo’s almighty Drum Song, which conclude the same original tape-reel as Over And Over. Rent Rebate features masterful, boppish soprano saxophone-playing by Roland Alphonso, and restrained guitar interjections by Barry Vincent, with a Spanish tang. The superb hand-drumming on Mount Zion is by Ras Menelik; and it’s Mittoo himself on organ (or just maybe Clive Hunt, Wackies can’t quite remember).

Fine roots from 1986, with a dose of Burning Spear in the singing. Produced by the Blackheart Man, favoured by Shaka.

Including a secret-weapon version of Baltimore.

Genius dubs of Barrington Levy’s Robin Hood set.
By now aged 20, Scientist had got his break mixing the singer for Jah Life: ‘When I first met King Tubby I always been telling him that ‘I can mix, I can mix’. And he always telling me, ‘Well, kid, first of all you should be in school. You’re smoking too much weed. Several big men try to do this. You’re a kid. Nobody not gonna allow you to mix.’ I would keep on bugging him, bugging him, bugging him. But he always just had me doing TV repairs, fixing the amplifiers and stuff for him. One day when Jammy failed to come — like he always do most of the time — Tubby’s made me a bet. He said, I bet if I send you around there to work, you wouldn’t know the first thing to do. And he pretty much lost on his bet. The first record I mixed went number one.’

His first LP, from 1980. Al Campbell productions recorded with Sly & Robbie at Channel One; mixed by the hubristic teenager at King Tubby’s. Great stuff… but a non-scientific title.

Ten killer dubs of Barrington Levy, mixed at Tubby’s, mostly unreleased. (The album was shelved in late 1980.)

Ruthlessly brilliant dubs of classic Linval Thompson productions like Wayne Wade’s Poor And Humble and Johnny Osbourne’s Kiss Somebody. Courtesy of the Roots Radics at Channel One, by way of Tubby’s. De Materialize puts it perfectly.

Magnificent do-over of Dennis Brown’s classic Foot Of The Mountain. A TG Binns production from mid-seventies New York. Murder.

A worthy catalogue raisonne of the JA recordings of this almighty genius at his peak.
A year-by year discography, with more than eight hundred label images, a heap of wonderful photos (including Adrian Boot’s classic images of the Black Ark), and spotlights on key players like Bob Marley, Junior Byles, Augustus Pablo, Junior Murvin, and Yabby You.
Sumptuously presented in full colour throughout 280 pages of coated paper, 297x210mm, with a classy soft-touch cover.
It’s a must.