The Rough Guide to Dub | ||||
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Compilation album by Various artists | ||||
Released | 15 March 2005 | |||
Genre | World, dub | |||
Length | 66:27 | |||
Label | World Music Network | |||
Full series chronology | ||||
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Complete list |
The Rough Guide to Dub is a world music compilation album originally released in 2005. Part of the World Music Network Rough Guides series, the release covers the roots of dub music, focusing on the period 1973-1980. [1] Curation was performed by Steve Barrow, co-founder of the record label Blood and Fire, who also compiled The Rough Guide to Reggae and authored its companion book. [2] Phil Stanton, co-founder of the World Music Network, produced the work. [3] [4]
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Robert Christgau [1] | A- |
AllMusic [4] | |
PopMatters [5] |
The album received universal acclaim upon release. Writing for PopMatters, John Bergstrom described it as "the most essential single-disc, multi-artist collection of dub music to be issued to date." [5] Bergstrom's observation that King Tubby and his circle dominate the track-listing was echoed by XLR8R's Jesse Serwer. [6] In the same vein, Rick Anderson of AllMusic pointed out that the tracks come from the vaults of re-issuing label Blood and Fire, causing the album to overlook artists like Augustus Pablo and Scientist, but nonetheless recommended the album. [4] Robert Christgau hit the same note, calling it "less inclusive than the title suggests", but praised the accessibility, a point mirrored by the Sydney Morning Herald's Bruce Elder, who also applauded the recording's "edginess" and "richness". [1] [7]
No. | Title | Artist | Length |
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1. | "Ordinary Version Chapter 3" | ET & Randy's All Stars | 2:52 |
2. | "Satia" | Keith Hudson Meets King Tubby | 3:09 |
3. | "Conquering Dub" | Yabby You Meets King Tubby | 3:20 |
4. | "Lightning & Thunder" | Morwell Unlimited Meet King Tubby's | 3:35 |
5. | "Shooter Dub" | King Tubby & Santic All Stars | 3:01 |
6. | "Behold a Dub" | Amanda All Stars & King Tubby | 3:26 |
7. | "Chapter of Money" | Aggrovators Meet Prince Jammy | 2:54 |
8. | "Satta Dread Dub" | Aggrovators Meet Prince Philip | 2:35 |
9. | "Repatriation Rock" | King Tubby Meets Vivian Jackson | 3:25 |
10. | "World Dub: Away With the Bad" | King Tubby Meets God Children Band | 3:33 |
11. | "Dub Zone" | Ja-Man All Stars Meet King Tubby | 2:39 |
12. | "Wire Dub" | ET Meets Skin, Flesh & Bones | 2:34 |
13. | "Noah Sugar Pan" | Upsetters | 3:29 |
14. | "No Problem" | Horace Andy Meets Prince Jammy | 3:49 |
15. | "Dub the Right Way" | King Tubby & Soul Syndicate | 2:42 |
16. | "Down Rhodesia" | Inner Circle Meets Maximillian At Channel One | 3:36 |
17. | "Zambia Dub" | King Tubby & Yabby You | 3:32 |
18. | "Moses Dub" | Revolutionaries | 3:36 |
19. | "Nuclear Bomb" | Revolutionaries | 3:48 |
20. | "General Version" | Dennis Brown Presents Prince Jammy | 4:52 |
Horace Michael Swaby, also known as Augustus Pablo, was a Jamaican roots reggae and dub record producer and a multi-instrumentalist that was active from the 1970s until his death.
Hopeton Overton Brown is a recording engineer and producer who rose to fame in the 1980s mixing dub music as "Scientist". A protégé of King Tubby, Scientist's contemporaries include several figures who, working at King Tubby's studio, had helped pioneer the genre in the 1970s: Ruddock, Bunny Lee, Philip Smart, Pat Kelly and Prince Jammy.
The Congos are a reggae vocal group from Jamaica which formed as the duo "Ashanti" Roy Johnson (tenor) and Cedric Myton (falsetto), later becoming a trio with the addition of Watty Burnett (baritone), and have been active on and off from the mid-1970s until the present day. They are best known for their Heart of the Congos album, recorded with Lee "Scratch" Perry.
Steve Barrow is a British reggae historiographer, chronologist, archivist, journalist, curator, writer, promoter, sound system operator, record-label owner and producer.
King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown is a dub studio album by Augustus Pablo and King Tubby, released in 1976. It features Carlton Barrett on drums, Robbie Shakespeare and Aston Barrett on bass guitar, and Earl "Chinna" Smith on guitar. Pablo produced the album and played melodica, piano, organ and clavinet. All sessions with the musicians were recorded at Randy's studio in Kingston, Jamaica, and then Pablo took the tapes to King Tubby for mixing. The album has been released on several different labels, often with slightly different artworks and track lists.
Heart of the Congos is a roots reggae album by the Congos, produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry at his Black Ark studio with a studio band including Boris Gardiner on bass and Ernest Ranglin on guitar. The album was released in 1977. It is noted as being one of Perry's masterpiece productions of the Black Ark era.
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Revolution Dub is a studio album by Jamaican dub producer Lee Perry and his studio band The Upsetters, released in 1975 by Cactus. The album, which features nine pared down dubs, was the last in a line of releases that year in which Perry began exploring the possible studio techniques at his recently opened studio Black Ark in Kingston, Jamaica. In addition to making early use of a drum machine, the album is characterised by unpredictable drops in the beat, drastic stereo panning and samples of dialogue from television series, particularly British sitcoms, while Perry sings on the album in an eccentric falsetto and portrays different personas, including television characters from Kojak and Doctor on the Go.
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Keith Hudson, was a Jamaican reggae artist and record producer. He is known for his influence on the dub movement.
Glenmore Lloyd Brown, also known as "God Son" and "The Rhythm Master", was a Jamaican singer, musician, and record producer, working primarily in the genres of reggae and dub.
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Rhythm Killers is an album by Jamaican musical duo Sly and Robbie, released in May 1987 by Island Records. By the time of the album's recording, Sly and Robbie had transitioned away from their prolific work in the reggae genre. They spent the 1980s experimenting with electronic sounds and contemporary recording technology on international, cross-genre endeavors, which influenced their direction for Rhythm Killers.
The Rough Guide to Reggae is a world music compilation album originally released in 1997. Part of the World Music Network Rough Guides series, the album broadly covers the reggae genre originating in Jamaica. The album was curated by Steve Barrow, who also wrote the namesake book, and later compiled The Rough Guide to Dub. Phil Stanton, co-founder of the World Music Network, was the producer.
A New Chapter of Dub is an album by English reggae band Aswad, released by Island Records in April 1982. The record is a dub version of Aswad's previous album New Chapter (1981), and was produced by the group with Michael "Reuben" Campbell. Having felt New Chapter under-performed commercially because it was too intricate for mainstream reggae audiences, the group conceived the dub remix album as a way of appealing to core reggae audiences. The record emphasises dub techniques like delay, echo and drop-out and was among the first British dub albums to use tape and digitally-manipulated echo on a horn section. Although not a commercial success, A New Chapter of Dub received critical acclaim and has since been cited by some writers as one of the greatest dub albums of all time.