Brain Damage is the third studio album by Barbadian-British reggae musician Dennis Bovell, released in 1981 by Fontana Records. His first solo album under his own name, following two dub albums released as Blackbeard, it was Bovell's first recording at his South London-based Studio 80. Having begun to feel that reggae had not progressed as much as he would have liked, he conceived Brain Damage as an attempt to fuse the genre with numerous rhythmic styles from Europe, America, Africa and the Caribbean to highlight the genre's flexibility. The musician intended not to explore the international rhythms in a standard way but to take them to what he perceived as musical extremes. The direction was also inspired by the wide array of people in his audience.
The album fuses reggae with styles such as rock, R&B, calypso, soca, disco, boogie-woogie and jazz, with Bovell providing mixing, production and most of the instrumentation. A second disc of instrumental dub tracks also features as a freebie, reducing the album's original price to that of a single album. Bovell formed the Dub Band to promote the album in concert, having envisioned its material in a live context. Music critics praised the album's eclecticism and musical abilities. In 2006, the album was remastered and issued as a single CD by Front Line.
Background and recording
By the late 1970s, guitarist Dennis Bovell had become one of the major figures on the London reggae scene, most prominently with the band Matumbi, who he had co-founded in the middle of the decade.[1] However, he found himself hampered by straightforward reggae,[2] and undertook a varied set of projects like the solo dub albums Strictly Dub Wize (1978) and I Wah Dub (1980), both released under the name Blackbeard,[1] production for experimental post-punk bands the Slits and the Pop Group,[1] and helping bring about lovers rock via his work with singers like Janet Kay.[2] According to biographer Lloyd Bradley, Bovell had started to feel through his live work with reggae artists that the genre had not been taken far enough and wished to push it "as far as possible", feeling that reggae was "strong enough to hold its own when applied to just about anything. To use it like jazz and take over tunes done in different styles and create a set of hybrids."[3]
"It was because we used to get all sorts of people at our shows, that I knew there was scope to try things out. We'd get punks or students, so I did a rock'n'roll version of 'After Tonight', then there was the Nigerian crowd, who went for the Afro soul beat of tunes like 'Aqua Dub', or there were a lot of calypso fans so I put 'Bertie' on there for them – I played drums on that track."
Feeling that his playing had become too self-styled, Bovell wanted "to be flexible, so that we can jump into a reggae number and then a jazz tune and then pop and then blues", and conceived Brain Damage in this fashion, intending the album to bring audiences of the disparate genres together. He explained, "there's people of different mentalities listening to the different musics. And that should not be! I wanna mash that barrier and have everyone listening to everything. Because then everyone's going to start appreciating everyone else for being in the world!"[4] The musician wished to prove reggae's versatility by fusing the genre with rhythms from the Caribbean, Africa and Europe. His inspiration for wanting to explore world rhythms beyond the Caribbean came from listening to funk and afrobeat artists of the era like the Funkees, Prince Nico and Savannah 75.[3] Further influencing the album was "all sorts of people" appearing at his shows ensuring him that "there was scope to try things out", which he reflected by re-recording Matumbi's "After Tonight" in a rock style for his punk and student fans, appeasing his Nigerian followers with the Afro-soul-styled "Aqua Dub" and wanting to give his original reggae fans "something extra by putting a bit of a twist on them" with more straightfoward reggae tracks "Ehying" and "Bettah".[3]
Brain Damage was the first recording by Bovell at Studio 80,[3] his South London studio which he had equipped with a 24-track recorder,[5][4] and wished to show his technical musical abilities as much as he wanted to show reggae's flexibility.[3] In addition to writing the material and singing, he played the majority of the album's instruments, including guitar, bass, drums, viola and keyboards, and produced and mixed the record.[5][6] Further contributors throughout the album include guitarist John Kpiaye, trumpeter Eddie Thornton, trombonist Rico Rodriguez and saxophonists Laura Logic and Steve Gregory.[7] The musician chose not to explore international rhythms in a standard away, instead wishing to "take the various styles as far as I could, as far as they could go, and, as I suppose I figured it in my own way, free them." He credited this mentality as having originated when experimenting with dub and reggae in a myriad of areas with John Kpiaye and Aswad's Tony Gad and Drummie Zeb when working on projects like the soundtrack to the film Babylon (1980).[3]
Composition
Dennis Bovell (pictured 2005) conceived Brain Damage as a way of fusing reggae with a myriad of other genres.
Brain Damage contains eight songs and eight dubs which explore a wide array of popular music forms and influences,[6] while keeping reggae at its core.[9] The album fuses reggae subgenres such as roots reggae,[5][6][10] lovers rock,[6][8] and dub[8][11] with other genres including pop,[5]rock and roll,[10][12]rhythm and blues,[6][12]disco,[9][12]funk,[10]calypso,[9][12]soca,[5][6]Latin music,[10]boogie-woogie,[1][13] jazz and afrobeat,[8] with each song being stylistically unique.[14] Bovell hoped that, via its genre excursions, the album would "fry a few crania",[5] and the record highlights his "cut 'n' mix" mentality above any interest in adhering to 'roots', according to author Dick Hebdige, who considers Brain Damage to exemplify "mutant reggae", a style he describes as "reggae which has been knocked into a different shape by banging up against calypso, R&B, rock 'n' roll', disco etc.".[12] The album also features what writer Mark Ellen called "a sprinkling of obscure musical jokes", such as "corny theme tunes".[10]
Originally issued as a double album,[15][8] the first disc contains the songs and features the most instrumental input from Bovell,[14] while the second disc is dedicated to dub instrumentals and was advertised as a "free album".[7][10][13] The ominous "Bettah" is more typical of Bovell's work, with its strident reggae rhythm and "inner-city" protest lyrics.[14] A re-recording of a Matumbi song,[4] the rock and roll-styled "After Tonight" features New Orleans R&B-style saxophone work.[14] Bovell explained that he placed the song "right in the middle of the reggae music on the first side" as an attempt to "shake it up. 'Cos people are too set in their ways; a lot of black people will stick their nose up at hearing a rock'n'roll tune, and equally on the other side. So that's got to go."[4] The lovers rock-styled "Our Tune" is a "lyrical pop ballad."[3][14] "Run Away" has drawn comparisons to 1950 black American vocal groups[14] and the rhythm and blues ska of the Skatalites.[3] "Heaven" is shimmering disco-funk song[14] which Bovell wrote to fuse different black music, explaining: "it one minute has an African rhythm, and then it moves to an American tune, and it keeps going in between the two."[4] According to Bradley, "Smouche" and "El Passoah" are "straight up soul", while "Chief Inspector" explores jazz.[3]
Release and promotion
Bovell named the album Brain Damage in reference to how he had created music he hoped would "do people's heads in when they heard what could be done and still be called reggae."[3] Issued at a two-for-the-price-of-one scheme due to the bonus dub disc,[16] the album was released in 1981 by Fontana Records, at the time a Phonogram company.[6][13] It was Bovell's first album to be released under his own name,[14] and the sleeve – photographed by Simon Fowler[7] – depicts him as a bearded, dreadlocked teacher.[17] It did not chart in the United Kingdom, as with the musician's other albums.[18] In the United States, the album was available in shops dedicated to new wave imports, such as Bonaparte in New York City.[14]
To play the album's material live, Bovell formed the Dub Band.[17] Regardless of the album's stylistic endeavours, Bovell had intended the album to be a set of tunes which would work best in a live context.[3] In an interview with Chris Salewicz of the NME, Bovell explained he wished to move away from the "demeaning routine of headline act and support act" and wished two have a "two equal bands set up" where "each band would play one tune each after another, the same as in sound system competitions."[4] According to Bradley, since the material "was far more about the tunes and the instrumentation than the studio effects or the technology," the album's accompanying tour was able to take advantage of making audiences wonder which styles Bovell and his band would tackle with each track.[3] For a long period following the tour, Bovell took a break from performances and did not reappear live until March 1983.[19]
In a contemporary review, Mark Ellen of Smash Hits felt that the "brilliant" Brain Damage built on the promise of I Wah Dub by revealing "yet more echoing corridors" down which Bovell explores a wide array of genres which are each presented "in the way you'd least expect", with the free dub disc increasing the entertainment factor.[10] Peter Trollope of the Liverpool Echo praised the first disc as an assortment of songs which "define reggae today–a contemporary culture that is breaking new boundaries, developing new scope–thanks to people like Bovell", while describing the dub disc as a pleasurable addition.[16] Reviewing the record for Harrow Midweek, Mike Hrano wrote that Bovell "copes triumphantly with any music he chooses to dabble in", highlighting how the genre explorations cover "the whole gambit", and commented how the album still revealed new "treasures and secrets" on repeated listens.[11] Less favourable was Brian Altken of the Aberdeen Evening Express, who said that while Bovell is a good session musician for other artists, the album "suggests that this is where he should stay", with the dub disc making "the tedium last longer".[22]
In an article for The New York Times, Robert Palmer commented how Brain Damage "suggests that Britain's emerging black pop can encompass as many idioms as the most eclectic white rock, but from an explicitly black musical perspective," further naming it as "one of the year's most savory and unexpected recorded pleasures" and positioning it with Linx's Intuition (1981) as black pop albums with a distinct British character.[14] A 1982 article in Race Today praised the album's genre fusions, musical knowledge and Bovell's diverse skills, calling it "the most daring and eclectic album ever produced by a reggae artist."[6] In a mixed retrospective assessment for The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, Randall Grass wrote that the album "moves easily from one musical style to another to produce many inspiring moments limited by uneven material."[21] Jim Green of Trouser Press noted how the "consistently enjoyable" album unusually features little dub and was "[g]ood lightweight groove music, ideal for summer," finding the bonus dub disc to be "similar to I Wah Dub, though not as engrossing."[13] Authors Phil Hardy and Dave Laing consider the album to be the "masterpiece" among Bovell's solo albums.[9][23] In 2006, Brain Damage was remastered and released as a single CD by Front Line,[3][24] while "Heaven" and "Smouche" were released as a twelve-inch single on 23 September 2014 by Optimo Records as part of their "Optimo Disc Plate Series", label co-founder JD Twitch having described Brain Damage as a "forgotten masterpiece."[25]
"…35HZ bass line ah bubble …2.5 mid frequency 16K ah treble, rockin in ah reggae frenzy …brain damage!"
Additional
Bill Farley – engineer
Dave Hunt – engineer
Seyoum Netfa – engineer
Simon Fowler – photography
Terry Jones – design concept
Related Research Articles
The music of Jamaica includes Jamaican folk music and many popular genres, such as mento, ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub music, dancehall, reggae fusion and related styles.
Dub is an electronic musical style that grew out of reggae in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is commonly considered a subgenre of reggae, though it has developed to extend beyond that style. Generally, dub consists of remixes of existing recordings created by significantly manipulating the original, usually through the removal of vocal parts, emphasis of the rhythm section, the application of studio effects such as echo and reverb, and the occasional dubbing of vocal or instrumental snippets from the original version or other works.
Adrian Maxwell Sherwood is an English record producer specialising in the genre of dub music. He has created a distinctive production style based on the application of dub effects and dub mixing techniques to other forms of electronic dance music and popular music outside of the genre. He has worked extensively with a variety of reggae artists as well as the musicians Keith LeBlanc, Doug Wimbish and Skip McDonald. Sherwood has remixed tracks by Coldcut, Depeche Mode, The Woodentops, Primal Scream, Pop Will Eat Itself, Sinéad O'Connor, and Skinny Puppy. In his role as a record producer he has worked with a variety of record labels; however, his best-known label is On-U Sound Records which he founded in 1979. Sherwood has been a member of the band Tackhead. He considers himself tone deaf, and focuses on making sounds and noises rather than melody.
Cut is the debut studio album by English punk band the Slits, released on 7 September 1979. It was recorded at Ridge Farm Studios in Rusper and produced by Dennis Bovell. The album was praised by later acts such as Kurt Cobain and Massive Attack.
People from the Caribbean have made significant contributions to British Black music for many generations.
Dennis Bovell is a Barbados-born reggae guitarist, bass player and record producer, based in England. He was a member of a progressive rock group called Stonehenge, who later changed name and became the British reggae band Matumbi, and released dub-reggae records under his own name as well as the pseudonym Blackbeard. He is most widely known for his decades-spanning collaborations with Linton Kwesi Johnson.
Y is the debut studio album of English post-punk band The Pop Group. The album was produced by dub musician Dennis "Blackbeard" Bovell at Ridge Farm Studios in Surrey, and was released on 20 April 1979 through Radar Records. It was reissued in 1996 by Radar, 2007 by Rhino/Radar, and in 2019 by Mute Records, including deluxe LP/12" and CD editions with bonus outtakes and live albums, to mark its 40th anniversary.
Bass Culture is an album by dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, released in 1980 on the Island Records label. It was produced by Linton Kwesi Johnson and Dennis Bovell. Bovell, Lloyd "Jah Bunny" Donaldson and Webster Johnson were members of Matumbi.
Forces of Victory is the debut solo album by the dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson. It was released in 1979 on Island Records.
John Brown's Body is an American eight-piece reggae and dub band based out of Ithaca, New York and Boston, Massachusetts. They have been together for two decades and have been hailed as "Future Roots, Reggae and Dub with an intricately balanced weaving of vocals, percussion, keyboard, bass, guitar and a stunning three-piece horn section that ties it all together" (WRUV). John Brown's Body is building "a legacy that has inspired and carved a path for the now thriving contemporary American reggae scene" .
LKJ in Dub is an album by the dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, released in 1980 on Island Records. It was produced by Dennis Bovell. It contains dub versions of tracks from the two previous LKJ albums, Forces of Victory and Bass Culture.
Roy Samuel Reid, better known as I-Roy, was a Jamaican deejay who had a very prolific career during the 1970s.
Walking on Sunshine is the third studio album by Guyanese-British musician Eddy Grant, originally released in 1978 by Ice Records. Recorded at Grant's Stamford Hill recording studio, the album was the follow-up to Message Man (1977) and fuses styles of Caribbean music like reggae, soca and calypso with other genres, including funk and pop. The musician played most of the album's instrumentation himself, and described the record as reflecting his joyousness. However, some songs feature tough cultural themes, particularly those on the first side.
Dread Beat an' Blood is the debut album by Poet and the Roots released in 1978 on the Front Line label. It was produced by Vivian Weathers and Linton Kwesi Johnson. The "Poet" is dub poet Johnson and "the Roots" are Dennis Bovell, Lloyd "Jah Bunny" Donaldson, Desmond Craig, Winston Curniffe, Everald Forrest, Floyd Lawson, John Varnom, Lila Weathers and Vivian Weathers. Vivian Weathers and Winston Curniffe were school friends of Johnson's. They all attended Tulse Hill Secondary School. Most of the tracks are based on poems that first appeared in Johnson's 1975 book of poetry Dread Beat an' Blood.
Daniele Gaudi, better known simply as Gaudi, is an Anglo-Italian musician, solo artist and record producer based in London, who specialises in dub music, electronica, reggae and worldbeat. His distinctive production sound appears in a number of albums nominated for Awards and prizes such as Grammy Award 2019 -Best Reggae Album Of The Year- for Mass Manipulation by Steel Pulse and BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music 2008 for the album Dub Qawwali by Gaudi & Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. His music works and contributions have topped international charts such as: Billboard Reggae Chart no.1 with the album Heavy Rain by Lee "Scratch" Perry, Billboard Reggae Chart no.1 with the album Mass Manipulation by Steel Pulse, Billboard Reggae Chart no.1 with the album Vessel of Love by Hollie Cook, Billboard Reggae Chart no.2 with "Rainford" by Lee "Scratch" Perry, UK Dance Chart no.1 with of "Jus' Come ".
Lovers' rock is a style of reggae music noted for its romantic sound and content. While love songs had been an important part of reggae since the late 1960s, the style was given a greater focus and a name in London in the mid-1970s.
Matumbi were one of the top British reggae bands of the 1970s and early 1980s, and are best known as the first successful band of guitarist and record producer Dennis Bovell.
John Ogetti Kpiaye is a reggae session and live guitarist. He was a member of The Cats who had a No. 48 UK hit with "Swan Lake", and Matumbi, who had a No. 35 hit with "Point of View ".
"Silly Games" is a song written by Dennis Bovell that was first released in 1979 as a single by Janet Kay. The single was a hit not only in the UK, where it reached number 2 that summer, but throughout Europe. Kay's appearance singing on Top of the Pops made it the first lover's rock tune on BBC Television's flagship popular music show. The song appeared again in 1990 as a re-recording, billed as by Lindy Layton featuring Janet Kay, which reached number 22 in the charts. A remix version of Kay's original recording spent three weeks in the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number 62.
Tings an' Times is an album by the Jamaican dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, released in 1991. It was Johnson's first album in six years. Tings an' Times also served as the title of a book of Johnson's poetry.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
