Customer Reviews

Sound of Channel One-King Tubby

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

 

 

SOUND OF CHANNEL ONE: A collection of excellent Channel One 45s from the late seventies and early eighties with King Tubby's contributing matching version sides. Proto-dancehall deejay Badoo (any relation to the marginally better known Madoo?), makes several enjoyable appearances including DIPLOMATIC LINK, an unusually topical report on deteriorating Cuban-Jamaican political relations, but the show is stolen by veteran Delroy Wilson's super-soulful STOP LOOK WHAT YOU'RE DOING and Desmond Irie's ultra-rare roots number, BABYLON YOU MUST GO DOWN. Overall, this is a superior collection which showcases the late, great Tubby's elemental dub styling at its laid-back best, and, as an added bonus, is mostly compiled in disco format so that the original sides melt away into the stripped-down versions. A solid four-stars, but I'll give it five to pull the rating up to its proper place.

If you liked this one, then you might want to check out Pressure Sounds' superb Firehouse Revolution compilation.

There's an enjoyable variety of reggae on these discs, and the dub takes of each cut often flow seamlessly from the end of the "full" version, making the song into one long piece, with echoey bits and play at the end -- a nice effect. The sound is quite coherent, overall, too; despite the diversity of themes, lyrically -- love songs (Delroy Wilson), Old Testament rastafari Zionism (Calvin Stuart), and more political songs (Desmond Irie), the songs WORK together, such that one can imagine the same band playing each tune, with rotating lead singers... The overall feeling of the music is one of joyous affirmation of life. I'm not that versed in King Tubby's work, so it's possible there is more interesting stuff out there, but as a relative novice to the world of dub, I really like this album and would highly recommend it to anyone. (Another reviewer here, as of Oct. 2000, suggests that the CD would be interesting for "hardcore Tubby heads" only; it was actually my introduction to him, and I love it).

This is a collection of seemeingly more recent tracks from King Tubby and Channel One. I just wasn't that impressed. The rhythms are kind of weak, although there is a little bit of interesting music over the span of the two disc set. Only reccomended for hardcore Tubby heads.