Reggae Classics / Oldies / Ska
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TOP ALBUMS
Burkina Faso (Wagadugu Blues)Emotional Rescue
Emotional Rescue continues its quest to bring obscure, left of centre dance to a wider audience with a reissue of Adu's reggae-pop cut Burkina Faso, starting the next series of releases where the label teams up with DJ / producer for a series of reissues featuring their edit / mixes that add to and update the original for today's dancefloor. South Saharan / West African emigre to Brixton long-term, musical and politically active resident, Rauf Adu would go on to a minor European wide hit in his supremely catchy Human To Human - checked You Tube for numerous 80s Euro-pop show appearances - the label goes back to the start, with his debut 7" release in 1982 for Copasetic Records and the reggae-pop inspired Burkina Faso. A laidback Compass Point drum and bass underpins with rock guitar and Adu's exaltations of youth and home, backed with flowing, layered harmonies across a call and response chorus. Simply a fun song to shuffle and ting, of its time but like an 80s pop-steppa. This is expanded further in the simple, but effective Dub mix, stripping everything back to highlight Adu's guitar slays and backing vox. For remix duties, the label welcomes fellow head of Isle Of Jura to get behind the desk and create some extended disco dub fun. The last 5 years have seen the Isle Of Jura label go from strength to strength and has just been topped with the arrival of in-house project, Jura Soundsystem's debut LP. The Adelaide best Brit, Kevin Griffith's has been providing additional production, mixes and dubs for his label since inception and here he presents a soundsystem remix that cuts, edits, extends and dubs Burkina Faso, teasing the instrumental intro before riding the songs groove to offer the version for today's DJ heads.
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Nowhere Like Here (Love Songs From The Caribbean And Diaspora)Emotional Rescue
Emotional Rescue is delighted to debut a first. Rather than a straight reissue of an (obscure) classic or a collection of music by an artist or label, here is a compilation of various artists centered around a sound and movement - reggae-tinged music and how it influenced and spread from the Caribbean and diaspora. Drawn from the off kilter digging of archivist, DJ and collector Bruno (perfectliv.es), Nowhere Like Here is not a follow up, but a sideways accompaniment, to his recent and already cult like 'Perfect Motion' collection of left field pop and new wave, recently self-released with Flo Dill (NTS). This is a special release to celebrate the label's 10th year and beyond, offering a treasure trove of lo-fi and often pop inspired reggae cuts, mixing heartfelt Lovers Rock style paeans and quirky private press oddities, all guaranteed to 'make-a-move and tap', these are, in the main ridiculously rare or impossible to find alternative bombs, that are just as sound system rocking and massive bass line quaking showcases of the enduring legacy of this Jamaican music phenomenon. As with much of the early 80s period, the music community was in the throes of a do-it-yourself cultural renaissance as small labels, where crazy limited, one-off White Label Only's came and went. Songs like Avalanche's Your Love Is Such A Good Thing or Warp Speed's Take It To The Night were part of the claiming the means of production in to their own hands, pressing up the records and self-distributing. This raw, naive exuberance can be heard in the songs themselves. This is not reggae or Lovers as known, but something more expressive. Musical, simply produced, but with intelligible and uplifting optimism that is just superlatively catchy. While Paul Thompson's Can I Take You Home and Ras Ibuna's Black Beauty are more straight-ahead Lover's style cuts, there is the parallel dance pop private pressing vibrations of the two Keith Robinson songs and Majority's Caroline included - all part of a thread; a joining of the dots that Nowhere Like Here is at its most basic, a warmth the whole album exudes. This is not a Lovers Rock Hits of some, but a left-of-center versioning, fitting the ethos of Emotional Rescue by presenting something most will not have heard before and all the better for it.
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Justice, Truth, & LoveDeeper Vision Recordings
The team over at Deeper Vision Recordings have delivered a real gem of modern reggae with this new drop from Lady Emz and Ted Ganung, who join forces for the sumptuous summer soothings of 'Justice, Truth & Love'. Imagine the most stripped back, organic, acoustic approach to reggae in 2023 and then pile a dash of dubwise class in the mix, you will find the combination unveils this wonderful original, both calming the soul and loosening your grip on reality. This one also comes complete with a full riddim mix of the instrumental, alongside a very tasty Sax mix, which gives a whole new feel to the original recordings in its compositional value. This is a special drop for sure!
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Bless Da PlanetTimewarp Music
Ever-prolific Croatian producer Vladimir Sivc AKA Funky Destination, a regular on the likes of Timewarp Music, Kraak Records and Cold Busted, returns with what (if we're counting correctly) is at least his eighth album in 10 years. His music's spanned a range of styles including funk, breaks and Balearica over the years, but 'Bless Da Planet' finds him firmly in reggae and dub mode - and pulling it all off with surprising aplomb. Sivc may be no Bob Marley, Lee Scratch or Toots Hibbert, but this album's every bit as convincing as those "regional heroes"-type reggae bands you tend to stumble across by accident on Sunday afternoons at festivals, and that's no mean feat. Worth investigating for sure.
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Happy LandAbove Board Projects
Ed Cartwright and Leon Oakey's first collaborative compilation is one of the few we've come across to eschew a narrow focus on one genre or style in favour of celebrating an under-documented era, namely UK dance music's eclectic, impossible to pigeonhole 'post-rave' period in the mid 1990s. Given that lots of great music was released then, it's a great idea. The tracklist boasts a lot of very good cuts, including a near impossible to find Richard D James oddity (as Strider B), a couple of killer Richard H Kirk-related numbers, some stretched-out, acid-fired early morning psychedelia (Thunderhead The Word By Eden), classic IDM gems (Xeper, the Black Dog), a dash of dubby, post-bleep brilliance (Liquid Son, Rotor) and a clutch of hybrid deep house/tech-house tracks (Max, Fretless AZM, Herbert).
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AtlantisOm Unit Self Released
Whenever the futuristic mastery of Om Unit touches down, we know it's time to turn our heads as he once again delivers a masterful box of tricks on this brand new 'Atlantis' collection. We begin with the stunning acidic dubwise fusion of 'Prophecy', taking original rootsy vocal samples and chord progression and tying them together with urgent horns and moogy bass notes for a sumptuous showdown. Next, the industrial drum thumps and post-breaks rhythms of 'Forward' march into play, with a return to the acid then looming with the bubbling bass tones of 'Deadnettle'. Finally, a hardcore inspired drum-driven spinner in 'Amber' closes the EP out in style, fusing fluttering synths with groovy sublow energy, putting the finishing touches on a very well thought out collection.
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