Picked up a few goodies as a holiday present for myself, presented here in no particular order.

Clockwise from top left:

King Tubby’s Presents Soundclash Dubplate Style (1988): When sound systems clash, they do so by playing specials—personalized versions of popular songs, with lyrics that exalt or insult a given sound, cut on metal records known as dubplates. Sweet sounds, aggressive sentiment. This LP collects some of Tubby’s countless dubplates, all from the mid-’80s and introduced by the late legendary trash-talker Fuzzy Jones (who rap fans would know from Smif-n-Wessun’s “Sound Bwoy Bureill” and Kanye West’s “Mercy”).

[Spotify]

Johnny Osbourne, Nightfall (1981): One of my all-time favorite singers¹, backed by my all-time favorite session crew (Roots Radics) and mixed by my all-time favorite engineer (Scientist). This finally got a re-press in 2019, courtesy of producer Linval Thompson; there was apparently a limited colored-vinyl version released for Record Store Day that same year, but I have zero complaints about mine (which is apparently the Spanish version). Listen to “Kiss Somebody” once and tell me you won’t be walking around singing it for weeks.

[Spotify]

Barrington Levy, Poorman Style (1982): More Roots Radics/Scientist goodness, this time supporting the incomparable Barrington Levy. This doesn’t have many of his most famous hits, but I’ve loved it since I plucked it out of the CD rack at Jammyland twenty-odd years ago. (Brits may recognize the cover of the UK release on Trojan, which treats “Poor Man” as two words.)

[Spotify]

Johnny Clarke, Dread a Dub (2012): Johnny Clarke ran things in the mid-late ’70s, and was the face of the “flying cymbals” and “rockers” sounds that were producer Bunny Lee’s signatures. This compilation gathers dub versions of some of Clarke’s biggest tunes—vocals reduced to snippets, mixed with heavy reverb and lots of space. The musicians on these tracks are some of reggae’s finest, assembled as Lee’s house band The Aggrovators: Sly and Robbie, pianist Jackie Mittoo, flying cymbal originator Carlton Davis, and more. If you’re a newcomer to dub, this is a solid place to start.

[Spotify]

Roots Radics, Live at Channel One in Jamaica (1982): This is a great album, and a beautiful reissue, with a white-and-gray vinyl pattern that almost looks like marble; it’s not, however, a great record. Not sure if it’s the pressing or what, but I couldn’t get through a song without it skipping, and that’s straight out of the shrinkwrap. I’ll see if another cartridge helps, but at least it can’t stop you from enjoying it on streaming.

[Spotify]

Junjo Presents: Heavyweight Dub Champion (1980): Roots Radics on the music. Scientist at the controls, this time as a dub mastermind. And Henry “Junjo” Lawes producing. You want my exact Venn diagram of perfect music? This is it. Lawes was a giant of reggae’s late ’70s/early ’80s rub a dub era; not only did his Volcano label release massive artists like Barrington Levy and Eek-a-Mouse, but its namesake soundsystem (Volcano Hi-Power) ruled the dance, thanks in no small part to dancehall king Yellowman.

The first disc in this set reworks most of the songs from Barrington Levy’s 1980 album Robin Hood inna dub style, and the second disc includes the originals, though sequenced differently from the album. A complete package in every sense of the term.

[Spotify]

1. Strictly speaking, he’s probably more of a singjay—a singer with a DJ’s chanting cadences. (In reggae, a “DJ” is a vocal artist, and a “selector” plays the actual records.) ↩︎