Sylford has gifted us some stone classics: Deuteronomy and Lambs Bread, with Glen Brown; Burn Babylon and Jah Golden Pen, with Joe Gibbs. And here’s another humdinger, this time with Clive Hunt.
Heavy, aching, bass-bin murder. It’s a must.
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.
Upful, true-born-scuffler sing-jaying over a crisp, late-eighties Mansfield McClean rhythm.
Life is for living, but watch your step; ‘dollars weak but life is sweet’.
Grittily slice-of-life reasoning by Shines aka Mark Anthony James. This is the 1989 do-over, produced by Roland Gordon.
Lucid, engaging chat over deft, vibesing digi; produced by Roland Gordon in 1990.
Everton is compellingly beside himself, over a dazzling, bare-bones, digi do-over of the rocksteady classic Tonight.
Previously unreleased.
Fire.
The great roots singer totally bossing this killer piece of late-eighties digi Lovers.
Like the Singing Melody excursion on the same stone-classic I Won’t Give Up rhythm, this is previously unreleased.
Upful, infectious, buzzing dancehall vibes, flirtatiously mashing in lines from Sunfire’s boogie classic Young, Free & Single, over the same murderously bumping digi rhythm as Frankie Wilmott’s I Won’t Give Up.
Ace, fired-up, new version of Pablo Gad’s classic, anti-colonial, UK-JA sufferers. Tippa from the legendary Saxon sound; the Lovers Rock maestro. Lovely to see these two Londoners sparring together again thirty-plus years after The New Decade session.
Get-loose, gimme-the-mic, basement-session vibes. Nick Manasseh expertly runs the desk.
All together now… ‘When I was a yout I used to bun collie weed in a rizzla, I use to bun it in a rizzla. Now I am a man I jus a burn collie weed in a chalwah, I just a rub it in a chalwah’... Can’t hear you… ‘Do you really wanna know about the half that never been told? Do you really wanna know what appen to our silver an gold ? We buck up on a hard time, we buck up on a hard time.’
‘The Romanian trombonist and composer Peter Herbolzheimer led one of the most hard-swinging, innovative, successful European big bands in history. Lineups included Art Farmer, Herb Geller, Dieter Reith, Sabu Martinez… This 45 presents two brassy, funky highlights from his 1973 album Wide Open.’
AAA transfers from the mastertapes; handsomely sleeved.