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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.’
The original Randy’s version is a desert island disc — and nearly twenty years later this a magnificent do-over by way of the Black Ark, originally released by Tony Owens’ Seven Leaves, in Kensal Rise.
Including a disinterment of his great song Burial.
‘What a big disgrace, the way you rob up the place… everything you can find, you even rob the blind. Now we know the truth… taking people’s business on your head, might as well you be dead.’
The second LP contains the dubs.
The Stepping Razor’s inspired melodica cut of Armagideon has the dreadest atmosphere of the lot.