Juno Recommends Dub September 2024

Review: Following on from a recent, establishing album, production duo Pitch Black return to the fore with a long-time-coming but final set of recognitive remixes by none other than On-U Sound founder Adrian Sherwood. Nearly 30 years after first being mesmerised by OnU Sound's releases, a cheeky bit of radio ripping serendipitously led to Mike helping Pats Dokter, the label's official archivist, with his work restoring master tapes, and eventually to him creating visual content for Adrian's live shows. The resultant return of the favour was Adrian's offering to remix Mike's music, resulting in this toothed, bass-wringing set of new mixes of the likes of '1000 Mile Drift' and 'Third Light'.

Review: That the musical backlog of Hopeton Overton Brown took on a clinical name in the popular imaginary was not an accident. Before becoming known as Scientist, he was also known as the "Dub Chemist", owing to his technicality, incisiveness and exactingness in the studio. This is not, however, licence for us to prescribe, daresay dub, a too-rigid image of or name for the sound-doctor-as-artist; and it's releases like 'Direct To Dub' that prove this intractability, this willingness to break from the main. In sharp contrast to Scientist's albums - which are more or less studio opuses, and bear the marks of grand concept and perfectionism - 'Direct To Dub' is a much rawer direct-to-dubplate - and thus direct-to-dome - set of tracks. In the release's preceding sessions, Brown was joined by Amsterdam-based trombonist Salvoandrea Lucifora and backing vocalists Alyssa Harrigan and Peace Oluwatobi; prior to their arrival, he went about taking the studio apart and reassembling it to his specifications. The result was a liver take on Brown's talents; playing less the cold trepidation of a pharmacist, and more the carpal quickness of a spin-doctor. Brown, of course, knew that even the apparently 'cold' attitude of removal connoted with mixing and engineering was in itself a performance: "In dub mixing, the engineer now becomes the artist and it's a performance that the engineer do," he himself said in the run-up to this Night Dreamer reissue.

Review: Mole Audio present a very special new quart of tracks from Daktari (Oliver Linge & Olaf Pozsgay), who've teamed up for a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration with vocalist and dub legend Horace Andy for an original set of versions. Actually, it's a welcome comeback for both artists; Daktari also haven't released anything since the brilliant back-to-back waxes for Luxus in 1997, then 1999. Now that the Y2K scare has abated (25 years later, no doubt) Daktari are back with 'Rasta Forever', which moves minimally and spatiously, and manages to sound much "slower" than its dancehall tempo would initially betray. Andy's star line has to be, "we don't smoke spliff, we smoke chalice," alluding to the kind of cannabis smoking pipe often used by Rastafari. Alt mixes from DB ART, Rhauder, and Zion Train transition from greezier dancehall, to something more dub technical, to a bubblers' delight in a more classic sound; all do stellar reparative justice to Andy's towering, implicit demand for dues and honour paid, and, true to the Daktari name, prove amply effective at remedying our symptoms.

Review: Jay Glass Dubs' Resurgence marks a bold step into experimental dub, filled with atmospheric depth and hypnotic rhythms. Released on Sundial, the six-track LP showcases his unique approach, blending dub with hints of post-rock, ambient and dreampop influences. Tracks like 'Hyperacousis (for Miles)' and 'Laguna' dive deep into expansive soundscapes, where echoing basslines and swirling effects create an otherworldly experience. With its rich textures and calming flow, Resurgence stands as a striking exploration of abstract dub, balancing introspective moments with a powerful sense of sonic movement.

Review: Clocktower Records reissue Scientist's Scientific Dub, arguably among the most popular set of exothermic reactions by dub pioneer Scientist to peer-review dub music as a science, as opposed to a form of pseudoscience or homeopathy. Medical jokes aside, Hopetown Brown was one of the first of his peers to approach the dub craft as though it were a "science" after King Tubby - the latter christened him "Scientist" on remarking that the then 15 year-old rookie was so good at what he did that - "Damn" - "this little boy must be a scientist." We don't use the word "timeless" lightly, but Scientific Dub is almost just that: a debut armoury of well-rounded, yet still rawly mixable, tinctures containing both dub bioweapons and rapid-administration herd cures, from the 'Satta Dread Dub' to the 'Blacka Shade Of Dub'. Coarse in sound, equally insofar as some of the best cures are bitter in taste.

Review: Clocktower has pressed up some joints from one of the finest dub albums of the 70s with this new, brown vinyl 10" from legendary dub outfit The Upsetters. The full album, also called Blackboard Jungle Dub, was produced and mixed by the late great Lee 'Scratch' Perry with King Tubby. It is a crucial and rather hardcore roots record with plenty of standouts, many of which are the ones that make it onto this new slab but in dub form. 'Blackboard Jungle,' 'Setta Iration,' 'Cloak & Dagger' and 'Dub From Africa' all make the cut and add up to a superlative listen.