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CD from Clocktower.
Originally released in 1980: the final work to emerge from the Black Ark studio, before its permanent destruction, crossing the soundworld of Roast Fish Collie Weed And Cornbread into new hybrids.
Tuff Scout rises to the occasion with a majestic rhythm, echoing and musically boned, sat well back in the saddle like Brother Roy’s Different Experience; whilst the great man does an entertaining variation of Memphis Tennessee. Ace dub.
Long Distance Information? May I speak to the High Priest?
Dazzlingly brilliant, pioneering dub from 1975, laden with genius, fresh air, good humour, and strangeness.
Woman’s Dub is astounding, still — a dub of Jimmy Riley doing Bobby Womack’s Woman’s Gotta Have It. ‘She’s gotta know she’s not walking on shaky ground,’ run the lyrics — amidst an awesome musical evocation of the far end of the Richter scale.
Hotly recommended here at HJ for decades.
Stupefying Upsetters genius — splicing together the rhythms of Better Days and Musical Transplant like Doctor Funkenstein himself, whilst Charlie Ace barks at Dinah the missus to get out of bed and pass him his trousers and an axe, there’s a cow-thief in the garden, needs his fingers chopped off.
CD from Doctor Bird.
Trenchant political reasoning over his own giddyingly brilliant production.
From 1978; in the same vein as Bafflin’ Smoke Signal.
Inimitable Upsetters genius.
Accompanied by Misty In Roots, at London’s Matrix Studio, early in 1987. This anniversary issue adds six studio and seven live recordings, all previously unreleased.
Recorded after eighteen months in prison for possession of a little cannabis, here is the definitive cut of the knockout song Creator revisited for the Upsetter.
Profound, stoic reasoning on a tough rhythm, with the wings of a dove. Wailing backing vocals, blurts of organ, burning horns; singing schooled by Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole.
On the flip, Come Down 68 puts us back behind behind bars, at year-end, looking forward to getting out. ‘Come down, evening, come down, night. Let me see that morning light.’