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Double helpings of riotous, classic dancehall recorded for Jah Thomas’s Midnight Rock label, but previously only issued as a promotional white label. The rhythms are by the Roots Radics, at Channel One. One side each for the deejays, brandishing lyrical cutlasses fit to kill. Early days for Super Cat, but his irresistible rise is already up in your face, plain as day.
Ace 1978 set voiced at King Tubby’s and mixed by Prince Jammy, with Trinity’s younger brother Clint deejaying over tough Aggrovators rhythms like African Roots and Stars, including an excursion on Black Uhuru’s Eden Out There.
Absolute murder.
A searing, haunting song about abuse, bitter disappointment, and heartbreak, set to a tough, chunky Jimmy Radway rhythm, with edgy organ and dread trombone.
Hortense Ellis is rawly, indelibly authentic: this is her best record by miles.
Plus some stone-classic Big Youth on the flip, ecstatically riding a lethal dub of the same megaton Fe Me Time rhythm.
Killer.
With Culture.
Further excursions on Black Oney’s Jah Jah Send The Parson rhythm. Far I rides a stripped dub (originally for a Carib Gems LP); the straighter Oney return was first released in a tiny run of blanks.
The commanding, concussive first LP of the Voice of Thunder, from 1976, chanting psalms and prayers over tough Lloydie Slim productions, mostly with the Aggrovators. (Plus a seemingly random Upsetters rhythm.)
‘Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.’
It’s a must.
A previously unreleased mix of the great man toasting over a one-away Satta excursion, for Lloydie Slim; and a previously unreleased dub.
Exuberant, celebratory, citational Gappy, over an original rhythm; plus a poised Miss Kjah on the flip, coolly making Ain’t That Loving You her own.
The utterly brilliant Roy Samuel Reid at the top of his game, riding tougher-than-tough Nineys. Back in.
Roy Reid (a JA customs official) on the politics of national currencies, with a dub getaway to Ruritania — from The General double.
It’s a shame he doesn’t stick to his theme, instead wandering into auto-pilot, but we’d happily listen to the great man recite a parking ticket.
A graduate of soundsystems like Gemini and Volcano Hi Power, Little John was twelve years old when he voiced this tune, shifting its sights from snitches and stoolies, straight to the head of all party-poopers. It appeared in 1983 during Sugar’s stay in London after Good Thing Going was a national pop hit in 1980, coming on the Stoke Newington label M And M - presumably named after Minott and his then-partner, Coxsone Dodd’s niece Maxine Stowe. Appearing first with Wackies’ pink-to-orange labels, Batta’s cut is a different mix again to the version on his album. He bows to U-Roy at the start, before switching to a more contemporary delivery. Sugar is in attendance throughout, almost as if the pair were taking turns at the mic, before the dub takes over.
Two versions, different dubwise mixes of Sugar Minott’s massive Informer rhythm — both choca with living dancehall vibes and Channel One-style deadliness.
Warehouse find; last box.