Customer Reviews

Forward The Bass: Dub From Randy's, 1972-1975

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Those hooked on the crunching bass and psychedelic effects of the King Tubby dynasty and Lee Perry may be disappointed in this collection of early to mid-1970's dubs issued by the team of Clive Chin, Errol Thompson and a broad cast of musicians. But the effect of these tracks is primarily musical as opposed to pyrotechnic. While E.T. manipulates the vocal track in a startling way on "Extraordinary Version" (a prototype of Skratch Picklz-style turntablism) and some intriguing mixes are found elsewhere, the engineering mainly puts the excellent music tracks into a more atmospheric perspective, maintaining and even in some cases improving the tone of the original performances. I get the feeling this will be one of the more overlooked B&F releases, but it shouldn't be.

This album is an example of what you get when you gather together a group of some of reggae's most talented musicians and let them do their thing. "Forward The Bass..." plays out like a dub jam session, with Clive Chin's mixing technique serving to accentuate, rather than manipulate, the sound of such respected musicians as: Tommy McCook, Augustus Pablo, Sly Dunbar, Mikey "Boo" Richards, and The Barrett Brothers, among others. "Forward The Dub..." is that rare dub album that focuses on great musicianship and instrumentation rather than over-
produced splashes of sound on top of "cookie cutter" riddims.

This disc starts out promisingly enough, with the five star instrumental workout 'Jaro,' which takes a catchy melody and fills it in with plenty of grooving sax, eastern guitar, and tasty bongos. Never, during the course of the remainder of the disc, do we reach such heights. This is early dub, and what that usually amounts to is the tracks being stripped down, rather than being manipulated in ways that enrich them. So, we have a lot of very, very sparse rhythms, and not a whole lot else happening. Every so often some promising little instrumental bit will come in, and we hope that this will blossom into something interesting, but more often than not, we are left wanting more.

There are a handful of good tracks on here, a couple of exellent ones, and a number that have no meat on their bones whatsoever. I find the vast majority of these tracks too stripped down and too dry. Previous reviews seem to take the position that the instruments are more accentuated than on later dub (a la Tubby), but I find that the fine musicians working here are not heard much at all.

"Foward" starts out blazing and occasionally surprises with some wicked dubs. The two "java" based dubs are pretty tough. "extraordinary" and "sabotage" are also classic.
The issue I have with this recording is that some of the dub effects seem forced. Three of these tracks have a harmonica player that seems out of place. I also think that the two "just another" tracks are quite bland.