[ aquarius records — Reggae Dub ]

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MPEG stream: Declaration Of Rights
MPEG stream: Y Mas Gan
MPEG stream: Abendigo (Extended Mix)

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SORRY. One of the best albums by Adrian Sherwood's African Head Charge, now re-issued on cd with a bonus CD-Rom track.

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Long overdue reissue of this psychedelic dub classic (originally released in 1986, their 4th record), from this long running UK collective, whose sound is an incredible mix of classic reggae and dub, live drumming, tape loops and samples. In a weird way, we're definitely reminded of the ethnic electronica of Muslimgauze, there's the same sort of rhythmic repetition, and for the time, an unprecedented melding of loops and samples and live instrumentation. Led by percussionist Bonjo I, the group filled out with various players from Adrian Sherwood's On-U Sound stable, AHC crafted sprawling dubscapes that fused a post punk aesthetic and a penchant for experimentation with classic dub basslines, and the ubiquitous melodica. But it's how these guys put these songs together, and the way they used samples and tape loops. Their usual MO is to lock into a dense bass heavy groove, and then working around that, adding live percussion, and lots of it, plus all manner of sampled percussion (sounding surprisingly industrial at times), not to mention buzzing guitars, breaking glass, dogs barking at different pitches to create strange melodies, lots of sampled chants, all of this giving these tracks a mysterious tribal/ritualistic vibe. One song is a dubby slow groove, wrapped around a sample of Albert Einstein, while others are caustic and surprisingly noisy, and still others are melodic and downright poppy, but always heavy on the bass, heavy on the percussion, and heavy on the woozy, dreamy, druggy atmosphere. Easily one of our favorite groups ever (some of us have been listening to these guys for close to 30 years), and this is certainly one of their best. The perfect late night chill out / drift off psych dub soundtrack!

MPEG stream: Off The Beaten Track
MPEG stream: Some Bizarre
MPEG stream: Belinda

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SORRY. Probably one of the more experimental albums in Adrian Sherwood's African Head Charge dub releases. Lots of off kilter sampling from Albert Einstein to Frank Zappa blended in with straight up dub. Somehow it works. Comes with CD-Rom bonus track.

Classic left-of center dub that might appeal to fans of Sun Araw!

MPEG stream: Free Chant (Churchical Chant Of The Iyabinghi)
MPEG stream: Healing Ceremony
MPEG stream: Chant For The Spirits

Adapting their name from their heroes The Aggrovators and the Crystalites, the Aggrolites are a California reggae band with a truly amazing knack for replicating the sounds of late sixties, early seventies Jamaican reggae. They're so good at reproducing a classic reggae sound that they were chosen as Prince Buster's backing band when Mr. Dread played at the Sierra Nevada World Music Festival in 2003. How they do it, we know not, but they can pull off a pre-Black Ark Lee Perry sound like no one else. Listen to "Burning Bush" and you have to wonder where that keyboard came from. Thankfully the Aggrolites aren't all about creating a convincing replica and while the guitar, bass, drums and organ all fit the bill, the vocals don't aim to imitate any Jamaican singer. Instead singer Jesse Wagner manages a scratchy, punk-rock-cum-blues vocal style more reminiscent of Los Lobos than anything else. Recommended!

MPEG stream: Hot Stop
MPEG stream: Burning Bush

Although they look like an old Fat Wreckords or Epitaph dude punk band, The Aggrolites aren't what they appear to be. In fact, they're a band (yes from L.A.) whose heart pounds to a solid reggae beat. However, unlike the reggae influenced bands who've come before them (The Clash, Rancid, etc), The Aggrolites have immersed themselves completely in the genre, doing a remarkable job of recreating the classic early Jamaican reggae sounds. Along the way you can hear deep reverent bows to the likes of The Ethiopians, The Skatallites, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Alton Ellis, Toots & The Maytals among others. Adding more proof to the pudding, the quintet have performed as backing band for many greats such as Phyllis Dillon, Derrick Morgan, and Prince Buster as well as Tim Armstrong of Rancid and Madness. There's nothing aggro about this here album. Nope, all you get are breezy good times!

MPEG stream: Work It
MPEG stream: Rhythm & Light

This isn't a new re-issue, it's been out for a while now, but we just picked it up. This is one of the best dub records I've heard in a long time. Very simple dub with patient and simple solo lines. In fact, this whole record is quite stripped down and compact -- maximum effect with minimum means. There is no recording date here, but it sounds as though it was recorded in the early seventies, evidenced by a complete lack of synth presence -- instead, good old organ and even way out of tune piano still fill the key spot. The melodic phrases are broken up nicely, sprinkled with spring reverb, tape delay and filled in with solo lines that avoid upstaging and never stray far from the austere fabric of the tunes. With the cast here it should probably not come as a surprize that this should be such a great record: Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare, Jackie Mittoo, Tommy McCook, Roland Alfonso, Skullie and more. Recorded at Channel One and at King Tubby's of course and produce by Bunny Lee. On the cover art tip, there's a nice drawing of three dred-locked rastas wielding machine guns and firing away in every direction.

RealAudio clip: The Conqueror
RealAudio clip: Bionic Man
RealAudio clip: Special Brew

It's now getting to the point where, not only can I pick out a new disc from the Jamaican Recordings label from 15 feet by their distinctive layouts, but I almost have a Pavlovian response when I see a new one. Because Jamaican recordings continues to prove

RealAudio clip: Not Just Another Dub
RealAudio clip: Live & Learn Dub

Awesome archival release from Alter Echo and ERS-One, featuring Dr. Israel, who aQ folks might remember from his killer dubbed out Sabbath cover. But this here disc is a killer chunk of low-slung, proto-dubstep, a thick slithery dubby groove and some super filthy buzzy low end, cranked the whole store shook, gunshots and toasting here and there throughout, the whole vibe hazy and ghostly and druggy and laid back, but that bassline and the minimal rhythm is totally irresistible. One sided single, in a plain yellow sleeve. WAY LIMITED.

Six extended dancehall mixes of Horace Andy from 1982. This is an excellent collection of recordings and is highly recommendable to those who picked up -- and enjoyed -- the "Nice Up The Dance" comp we listed a little while back. Though the cuts aren't quite as lengthy as those on "Nice Up The Dance", most clocking in around 7 minutes, each has a good long dub bridge in the middle with

RealAudio clip: Money Money

Another excellent, albeit quite possibly not entirely authentic, collection of dubs from Jamaican Recordings (please see description of King Tubby's "Lost Treasures" also reviewed on this list for more on this.) Featuring Bunny Lee's house band the Aggrovators (in this case Sly & Robbie on drums and bass, Earl Smith on guitar, Winston Wright on organ, Augustus Pablo on keyboards, Tommy McCook on saxophone and Bobby Ellis on trumpet) the backing tracks on this album were recorded at Randy's, Channel 1, King Tubby's, and Harry J's between 197 and 1976. There are some excellent dubs of some great Horace Andy tracks including Skylarking, My Guiding Star (a Heptones original), Just Say Who, Love of A Woman, Money Money and more. Like all Jamaican Recordings releases the CD version includes bonus tracks not available on the vinyl.

RealAudio clip: Zion Dub
RealAudio clip: Use This Dub

Plain white sleeve 10" from Jamaican Recordings' forthcoming full length collection of Horace Andy dubs. Dub Larking obviously is a dub of Skylarking, Dub Ah Fulfil is a rare dub of "Serious Thing" (and will only be available on the CD version of the full length when it's released in the near future.)

After Massive Attack revived Horace Andy's career with his beautiful cameos on "Mezzanine," Horace Andy presents his first solo recordings in quite a long time (a decade or two?). Recorded with Clive Hunt at Tuff Gong in Kingston, Jamaica, "Living In The Flood" has a rather dry modern reggae sound, probably to emphasize Horace Andy's warbly, delicate voice which is a beautiful thing, but the music (often with sappy 80s anglo-jazz overtones) tends to detract from his overall ability.

MPEG stream: If I Wasn't A Man
MPEG stream: Freedom

Low priced double disc anthology of vocalist Horace Andy, apparently a part of a series of anthologies of Jamaican artists being released by Recall. Each collection comes with a fair amount of biographical notes on the artist and generally make good starting

RealAudio clip: Love Is A Treasure

Not to be confused with the 1997 release of the same name on Massive Attack's Melankolic label (basically a best of that included some Massive Attack tracks.) Skylarking was Andy's first album, produced by Coxsone Dodd and released in 1972. Along with the

RealAudio clip: Where Do The Children Play?
RealAudio clip: Skylarking
RealAudio clip: Don't Cry Little Girl

A couple of excellent, albeit *completely* different, tracks extracted from the archives of Bronx's now legendary Wackies label & recording studio. The A-Side is a super sweet discomix of Horace Andy's "Musical Episode" from 1982. Clocking in at 6 minutes it's one of the nicest cuts I've heard come out of Wackies, replete with pounding kumina drumming even; so it's all the nicer that it's extra long. The B-Side is equally great, but such a polar opposite that it's amazing they grace the same slab. Legend has it, that this 1979 track was Lloyd Barnes' (a.k.a. Bullwackie) only attempt at breaking into hip hop. On it three kids, apparently young Jamaican emigrees to the U.S., give their all in true Sugarhill Gang form, doing their best to imitate the New York patois with their stream of consciousness lyrics which go on endlessly. What's better is that the version offered here was the B-Side to the original single, so about half way through it gets totally fucking dubbed out, with drums and bass dropping in and out, echo bounced off the vocals -- which sounds totally strange on frenetic hip hop delivery, as opposed to a slow reggae track -- and kooky electronic sounds. The total length of the track is almost 11 minutes, putting it up there as one of the longest hip hop tracks ever. For those without access to a turntable, fear not, these two tracks are a preview to a full length compilation being released by Dis-Joint.

RealAudio clip: Musical Episode
RealAudio clip: Wack Rap

Hip hop remix. Rhythm = "I'm A Thug" (Trick Daddy).

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"Jamaica's first dub album. Originally released 1971."

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SORRY. Hip hop remix.

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SORRY. Hip hop remix.

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SORRY. We picked up some copies of our favorite Dancehall track by Buju Banton. This is the same track that was featured on the 400% Dynamite compilation. The B-Side contains the dub version of the same track. We've ordered several, but we don't know how many more we can continue to get, so if you want one you should order sooner rather than later.

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SORRY. Hip hop remix. Rhythm = "Midwest Swing" (St. Lunatics).

Another cool dance hall single from Jamaica, this time around the rhtyhm is "One Minute Man" (Missy Elliott). B-side, though supposedly containing a "Remix" of the aforementioned rhythm, has a version that is completely unrelated.

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SORRY. Hip hop remix. Rhythm = "What It Is" (Busta Rhymes).

Like a few of the newer hip hop dancehall remixes, this one utilizes a few different rhythms crossfaded in and out. The b-side says "version" on it, but -- surprize, surprize -- actually has the Elephant Man theme (using the melody to "Spiderman" of course.) Nice printing bonus on this single is a classic misspelling of Beenie Man as "Bennie Man".

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Just got this in TODAY, list day, so we really didn't have a chance to write up our own review yet but wanted to list it anyway 'cuz we figure folks will want it asap. And we did give it a spin, it's awesome. For those who want a little more info, we'll quote the blurb from the record label: "Fans of Terry Riley, Kraftwerk, Conrad Schntizler, and Kosmische Musik in general take note! Bitchin Bajas has returned to Permanent Records (following their split single with Moon Duo) with a brand new record of side-long transcendental synth workouts. This is Bitchin Bajas most accessible and autobahn ready delivery to date! Bitchin Bajas began as a side project, but Cooper Crain of Cave and Dan Quinlivan formerly of Mahjongg have been spending as much time, if not more, with Bitchin Bajas as they have with the aforementioned groups and they've been progressing very quickly. In just two or so years, Bitchin Bajas have released three critically acclaimed LPs (one on Important Records and two on Kallestei Editions), two incredible splits (one with Moon Duo and the other with the Peaking Lights-related Faceplant), and one very limited edition cassette tape. The two side-long pieces on this nearly 40 minute EP were written on their 2012 European tour and recorded and mixed over three days by Bitchin Bajas at Minbal Studio in Chicago, Illinois. Edition of 500 copies.

add to cart [/images/addtocart.gif]/af4105.html It was only a matter of time. There's been rap metal, and there's been funk metal, but as far as we know, nobody has combined black metal and dub, at least in a way that was at all palatable (we're definitely not counting the Bill Laswell produced Cradle Of Filth remix record or that abominable Tolkien-dub Prince Far Isengard record from a few years back). But now we've got the brilliantly monickered Black Ark Oaken Saw, a grim troupe of ganja smoking, washboard stroking, corpse painted Dandys in tight trousers. Huge swaths of murky buzzsaw guitars, howled demonic David Lee Roth-like vocals, wrapped in loads of reverb and delay, but instead of blast beats, or precise triggered drums, the dark abyss is framed by spare super blissed out, dubbed out echoplexed dub rhythms, snares crack and then repeat endlessly into the blackened void, while shrieks are snipped mid phrase and then recycled into haunting otherworldy echoes of blackened dub. Weird weird weird, it seems like this sort of thing wouldn't work at all, but surprisingly it's an absolutely perfect fit. Imagine Emperor with Sly and Robbie occupying the rhythm section or Lee Perry fronting Lugubrum. And we can't forget the un-named frontman who indeed plays the amplified washboard, but it too is run through a bank of effects and emerges a totally dubbed out barely recognizable version of itself. Hopefully, Hydra Head's interest in the fringes of black metal will continue to unearth more unholy treasures like the mighty Black Ark Oaken Saw!

MPEG stream: Haunting Halls of Hellfury (In Dub)
MPEG stream: Christpunching (In Dub)

Sinsemilla is a total masterpiece, originally released in 1980, but which somehow most of us managed to miss out on completely, until just recently. When we finally did hear it for the first time we knew this would be one of those lifer discs, a record that would never leave our collection, and that would get repeated play for years and years to come. Black Uhuru formed in Jamaica in the late '70s and with this, their third album they drafted the blueprint for the possibilities of how wide reaching and soul satisfying reggae songs could really sound. We stress SONGS as this is a collection of some of the most well crafted, melodic, catchy and deep grooved reggae jams we've ever heard. So good, it's tough to imagine that this isn't some sort of greatest hits album, every single track sizzles with a personality of its own that grabs your attention and keeps you coming back for more. With nods to Patrick Adams, a revolutionary spirit and a true yearning for that elusive state of happiness, this is a record that even though we discovered late, will most likely rank as an all-time AQ reggae favorite. Eternal summer jams!

MPEG stream: Happiness
MPEG stream: Push Push
MPEG stream: Sinsemilla

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SORRY. Hip hop remix. Rhythm = "One Minute Man" (Missy Elliott).

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SORRY. Hip hop remix. Rhythm = "One Minute Man" (Missy Elliott).

It's been almost two years since the last Disrupt record, 1997's Foundation Bit, a killer head spinning mix of old school 8-bit Atari sounds and bass heavy dub and dubstep. A pretty potent combo for sure, and that record still gets lots of play, so we were pretty psyched to discover there were not one, but TWO new Disrupt discs, the other one, The Bass Has Left The Building, we'll review on a future list, but this one is the one that has been driving us nuts, forcing us to listen to it over and over and over. The MO is pretty much the same, but somehow, the dub is even deeper and bassier, and the video game sounds are way more pronounced, which makes for some seriously fun and funky shit. Album opener "Bauhelm Tracker" sounds like a video game soundtrack remixed by some dub sound system, before the follow up track which is a straight dub version, complete with soulful vocals, groovy and dark and smoldering, which leads right into the dub version, which is awesomely spaced out and druggy, snare cracks careening all over the place, effects swirling and swooping, head spinning and so good. And the rest of the record follows a similar pattern, with the 'tracker' version being the eighties video game soundtrack version, then the straight up vocal version, and sometimes a super spaced out dub version. Thankfully, Disrupt and Marley are loose enough to let diverge from that pattern whenever the mood strikes them, so a dub version will be laced with some bloops and bleeps, or a video game jam will get all dubby. Such an incredible palette of sounds, and these two have such a deft hand at arranging, that things never sound cheesy or silly, playful maybe, fun and a little ridiculous here and there for sure, but overall these are just some seriously deep dubby grooves, that just so happen to be laced with some 8-bit bleep, which as far as we're concerned is not a bad thing at all.

MPEG stream: Bauhelm Tracker
MPEG stream: Bauhelm Dub
MPEG stream: Robot Tracker
MPEG stream: Robot Echos

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SORRY. Hip hop remix. Rhythm = "One Minute Man" (Missy Elliott).

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. Hip hop remix. Rhythm = "One Minute Man" (Missy Elliott).