MUSIC

After Prince Istari finished the Dub Encounter with Erik Satie, he immediately set to work on expelling the evil curse of artificial intelligence. While the encounter with Satie was guided by the original compositions, this album delves deeper into dub science. The opening track is "Curse Of Machine Learning," a grinding cumbia dub track that sucks you into the curse of machine learning. It's followed by "Artificial Neural Network," arguably the album's most nerve-wracking track, with wild snare rolls colliding with offbeat echoed riddim sections. "Large Language Models" offers a more relaxed, arabesque one-drop riddim with speech synthesis vocals. "Fake Image" closes the first side with a full trombone solo contributed by Eugene Rosebud. Side B starts with the one-drop killer tune "Haunted By Delusion," featuring an organ solo by Prince Istari. Drum and bass in your face. "Evil Forces," on the other hand, is a fusion of jazz and dub; after the brass section breakdown, it rolls into a crazy synth solo. Then next „I Want Your Data" pulls your data into the AI's guts with a vibraphone. This is maybe the ambitious tune on the record speaking of chord progressions. The final track sees Eugene Rosebud return with a double trombone solo in "Transhuman Feedback Rock" assisted by a saz cooling the blues pattern with a hookline. Here we have beautifull springreverb and harmonizer dub effects on the snare twirrling around the trombone solos. All tunes composed, arranged, conducted and engineered by Prince Istari and played by his house band The Virtualistics. Trombone Solos by Eugene Rosebud. Packaged in a nice cover drawn by Markus Schäfer and frequency shift and cut by LXC.

On "SHAME", producer 2K88 (Przemysław Jankowiak, fka 1988) invokes the era and spirit of PL SOUND, a local genre inspired by British soundsystem music but infused with the social, urban, and sonic themes that developed during Poland’s post-communist transformation. "SHAME" is a progressive, bass-fueled transmission built from scraps of hip-hop’s past; it’s a cinematic vision of Y2K Polish rap that’s in constant flux, where every detail is just as important as the whole structure. Sampling the Polish canon of beats from the low-rent districts of the nineties, 2K88 plunders tracks already based on samples and channels the experiences of the generations that grew up with those sounds, struggling and celebrating with them. And just as he did with his previous projects Etamski and 1988, 2K88 draws out, processes, and ages his elements in an echo chamber, asking questions and formulating answers. Jankowiak works on the fringes of genre: traces of ambient, dub, rap and jungle flicker into low-lit urban rhythms, chunky nightclub basslines and paranoid production touches. This is in keeping with his new, futuristic handle, 2K88. Not for a second does he succumb to today’s omnipresent nostalgia, instead putting reconstruction before deconstruction — he finds whole worlds in his scraps, and in the long-gone turn-of-the-millennium period, whose liminal qualities feel like a precursor to the unease of the present moment. The end-of-the-20th-century paranoia has only intensified in the past 30 years, and paranoia, as Philo Gant once said in the 1995 sci-fi film "Strange Days", is “just reality on a finer scale”. By that logic, 2K88 offers a picture of the grittiest reality blown up to truly awe-inspiring proportions. ______________________________________________________________ 2K88— fka 1988, aka Przemysław Jankowiak — is a music producer, graphic designer, and audio director raised in the Poland of the 1990s and on the pioneering rap records of that time. The rawness, chunkiness, and paranoia he took from this period have always been an integral part of his music. They were there when he made his first homemade beats and stayed with him when, in the following years, he distanced himself from hip-hop, going deeper into the world of sampling experiments and the post-genre avant-garde. Later, he and Robert Piernikowski created the universe of the duo Syny - an irreal spectral/ontological phenomenon built out of memories, dreams, and bass, rap, dub, and smoke. Since the end of Syny, Jankowiak has let loose his beatmaker impulses on a collaborative record with Warsaw’s legendary MC Włodi, created the album Ruleta [Roulette] with over 30 featured guests, and struck up a dialogue with the electronic soundsystem work that’s fascinated him for years on the Ring the Alarm EP. He’s also created chart-topping avant-pop with Brodka and a mimetic soundtrack to “Splinter”, but it is SHAME that is the album we might call his sonic résumé.

Ephemera is the debut album by Fergus Jones, the artist formerly known as Perko, an Edinburgh-born, Copenhagen-based producer, DJ and founder of the FELT record label. The nine-track release is out now. Ephemera was developed with collaborative energy as the creative priority, produced by Jones alongside an extensive list of like-minded musicians, lyricists and vocalists including Huerco S, James K, Koreless, Birthmark, ELDON and Withdrawn of Bristol’s Cold Light crew, Laila Sakini and Lia T. The album embodies Jones’ inner journey as he ranges further than ever sonically and emotionally, emphasising instinct, intensity, tactility and rapture. “Heima” was written and produced with Huerco S and James K between Iceland, Copenhagen and the United States’ East Coast. Developed during and named after the same Icelandic artist residency that birthed Perko & Huerco S’ debut co-production “Prang,” “Heima” is a shimmering piece of fortified trip-pop featuring vocals from James K, appearing here following solo releases for AD 93 and collaborations with Yves Tumor. “Tight Knit” aligns Jones’ graceful production with the raw and restless emotions thundering from the performances of Birthmark, ELDON and Withdrawn of Cold Light, the shadowy Bristolian collective channelling the city’s deep sonic history into an equally rich future. The album makes a distinctive impact that reverberates and glows long after its runtime. Analogue audio sculpting, adaptive processes and imaginative approaches to creating sound are at the forefront – whether resulting from an endless exchange of iterative stems with Huerco S, or hydrophone recordings with Koreless. Evocative vocal performances and songwriting combine with weighty sound design, gliding easily between the organic and synthetic to reflect and expand the thin spaces of transcendence in each. “This album was made over the last five years in various studio and outdoor locations around the world, reflecting my ongoing emphasis on natural collaboration as a creative ideal. It’s my most personal record yet, written with experimentation and an open attitude as guiding lights.” – Fergus Jones Ephemera follows three prior releases on Numbers under the Perko alias – 2018’s NV Auto, 2020’s The City Rings, and 2023’s Prang, which was included on Resident Advisor’s Best Tracks of 2023. Jones has contributed DJ mixes to the long-running FACT and Truants series, is a frequent guest on radio stations such as NTS and Rinse, and has toured globally.

After releasing Undefined, Kazufumi Kodama and Babe Roots, the 4th release from a Japanese experimental dub label newdubhall welcomes the ever-evolving pioneer of minimal dub and dub techno Deadbeat, a solo project of Scott Monteith hailing from Canada. Side A 'Things Fall Apart' will feature a beatless dub ambient which shares a perspective of free jazz and 'Adieu Chez Cherie,’ an absolute knockdown four on the floor dub techno on the flip side. Though simple, both sides are layered with complexity, let yourself experience the profundity of newdubhall with this masterpiece.

Kindred the shop and radio station based in London mint a new in-house label, headed up by one of the store's founders, Scar. Up first is station regular, Alicia, with a 60 min hazy trip through dubwise ambient & downtempo niceness, really cracking listen this one. Limited edition c60 cassette.

Ten unreleased deadly digi riddims from the myspace era by Copenhagen’s Maffi crew, dubbed out into 3D space by disrupt in 2024. Taking its name from a crucial Firehouse mixtape series, “Mastermind Computer Style” is full of raw nuggets of simplistic beauty, all made in trusty Propellerhead Reason between 2006 and 2009. Some of these riddims were a firm part of early Jahtari live shows, played out on sound systems all over the globe, but never have been cut to vinyl until now. Watch out for heavy synth driven 8-bit floaters like “Morkt Igen” or “Another Lara”, a Disco Dub version of the Kashif bomb “I’m in Love” by Evelyn King. And check oddities like “Skudduel” or “Jon Jovi”, an alien mutation of the Jon Bon riddim which became Solo Banton’s classic “Talk To Me“. Raw, primitive CyberDancehall at its best, nostalgic and oddly futuristic at the same time, this album is quickly becoming RoboCop’s favourite playlist when going to work.

Back in circulation after over a decade, Jahtari’s seminal “Jahtarian Dubbers Vol. 1 EP” receives the long-awaited reissue treatment, reviving the raw, 8-bit-infused dub vibes that defined a new era of digital roots music. Originally released in 2008 and quickly disappearing into dub obscurity, this heavyweight 12” returns with four essential cuts that perfectly encapsulate the Jahtari sound—where chiptune meets the echo chamber. The EP kicks off with Blaze Dem’s “Roots Defender,” a hypnotic concotion of deep basslines and eerie samples from a Swedish cult ritual, setting a heavy tone right from the start. disrupt’s cinematic “Kozure Okami” follows, channeling Black Ark vibes through 8-bit synth explorations. On the flip, John Frum delivers the hauntingly beautiful “January Dub,” while Rootah’s slomo slammer “Holy Mount Part 2” closes the EP with Lynchian, echo-soaked vibrations that linger long after the needle lifts. Timeless tracks, mastered by CGB-1 at D&M in Berlin for maximum impact. Pivotal piece of Dub music!

Japanese dub band MUTE BEAT's live album “LIVE”, selected from their live performances from 1988 to 1989, is now available for the first time on vinyl. The album includes live tours in North America, including SOB's in N.Y., and performances with legends such as Gladstone “Gladdy” Anderson and Roland Alfonso.

The second outing by Hunter Thompson’s tribalist dub alias Tegu skews more spectral and environmental, a canopy of cascading keys, hand percussion, and swells of everglades bass: Owl Island. Recorded in early 2024 on the banks of a Floridian canal, the album’s 11 tracks roll in like warm fog over an ancient marsh, swaying with low end and loops of humid synths. Across 53 minutes, the music moves between séance and visitation, alternately lurking and expectant, bathed in a sheen of starlight and streetlights. Fellow voyagers Wave Temples and X.Y.R. join for a pair of smoky, cosmic cameos, but otherwise this is a solitary affair – locked in, looking up, mapping new constellations in the expanding void.

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of Tomaga's debut album, 'Futura Grotesk', Hands in the Dark are re-releasing the long sold out record in a limited edition of 500 copies. The reissue will be accompanied by the first-ever vinyl pressing of the band's inaugural EP, 'Sleepy Jazz for Tired Cats', featuring new artwork and 300 units available. Both records have been remastered by Marta Salogni for the occasion. Established in 2013 by Valentina Magaletti and Tom Relleen, the duo operated until 2020 as a creative laboratory for the London-based musicians to explore beyond their traditional musical endeavours. They sought to deconstruct their usual sonic frameworks, venturing into a novel and unfamiliar auditory landscape. Their work seamlessly integrated various forms of multi-instrumentalism, traversing the realms of industrial, jazz, psychedelia and minimalism. The band's self-released cassette debut, 'Sleepy Jazz for Tired Cats' presents an unconstrained, complex and abstract introduction to their distinctive and darkly thought-provoking sound. In contrast, Tomaga’s seminal album, 'Futura Grotesk', further elevates their sonic explorations, leading to compositions that are more elusive and profoundly evocative, resembling the surreal and unsettling language of dreams and other subconscious wanderings transposed into a unique musical expression.

First time available on vinyl since 1982. Psychotic Jonkanoo was the sixth Creation Rebel album in three years, originally licensed to the post-punk oriented Glaswegian label Statik. Another solid set of killer dub, albeit less instrumentally inclined than their previous efforts and more focussed on militant-style conscious chants. Bandleader Crucial Tony was aided on the vocal front by harmonies from other group members, in a style reminiscent of Black Uhuru, plus the occasional guest such as John Lydon of the Sex Pistols and Public Image Limited providing backing harmony (!) on “Mother Don’t Cry”, and the legendary Deadly Headley Bennett adding saxophone to the opening track.

“Anybody searching Adrian Sherwood's catalogue for an easy point of entry would do well to start here, and everyone else can simply applaud Psychotic Jonkanoo as the last truly great roots reggae album of the 1980s.” All Music

limited Green vinyl LP with Obi. 10 brand new recordings from the legendary Jamaican singer and longtime Massive Attack collaborator, Horace Andy, produced by Adrian Sherwood.

Midnight Rocker has been approached in a similar fashion to the late-career quality that Sherwood coaxed out of Lee "Scratch" Perry with the Rainford and Heavy Rain albums, assembling a crack team of players and spending many months perfecting performance, arrangements and mixing. The result is a remarkable suite of tracks that sparkle with superb musicianship, carefully crafted production and Horace’s beautiful vocals.

The material includes revisiting and updating a few classic Horace Andy songs such as “Mr. Bassie”, but the bulk of the tracks are brand new compositions with contemporary messages, such as “Watch Over Them” and “Materialist”. The pair have also versioned “Safe From Harm”, a much-loved early single by the group that Andy is most associated with – Massive Attack.

“On-U Sound are very proud to present a truly wonderful album with one of the all-time great singer-songwriters in the rich history of Jamaican music, Horace Andy. This is a true gold star performance, and I’m very proud of it.” Adrian Sherwood

Mbalax is a genre of dance music that is primarily performed in Senegal and The Gambia. Here we have re-interpretations of the mesmerizing master drumming rhythms from Holy Tongue, Beatrice Dillon, Lamin Fofana and LABOUR. Holy Tongue (Al Wootton, Susumu Mukai, Valentina Magaletti) take things in a heavy post-punk dub direction - think On-U Sound and 23 Skidoo. Beatrice Dillon electrifies proceedings in a Mark Fell/Gabor Lazar/Rian Treanor style. Meanwhile, Lamin Fofano hypnotizes with two psychedelic revisions and LABOUR ramps up the intensity with two perspectives on the same drum rhythm.

WHITE-LABEL ALBUM Unheard Dubs from the Mad Professors 80s / 90s / 2000s archives . . TIP!

Twin heavyweights Kevin Richard Martin (The Bug) and Joseph Kamaru (KMRU) unite for Disconnect, a powerful study of dread, hope, and profound sonics that marries depth-trawling dub with Kamaru’s voice, ambient sensibilities, and negative space. Kevin Martin first became aware of Kenyan ambient musician KMRU “watching the short 2020 documentary Under The Bridge,” he tells us. “Which, aside from immediately finding Joseph's approach to sound and music so instantly impressive, I also found his spoken voice possessed a captivating, lilting, tonal quality, with his soft-spoken accent.” Following this, Martin dug into Kamaru’s records, and found not only a kindred spirit in skillful exploration of sonic space, but also a fan of The Bug. So began a mutually respectful relationship, initially held in Instagram DMs and reciprocal admiration for each other’s work and eventually blossoming into an invitation sent by Kevin to Joseph to collaborate on a new album. The results - debut collaboration album Disconnect - collect a back-and-forth creative dialogue that started life in Martin’s studio. “I think I surprised Joseph by suggesting he contributes vocals,” Martin tells us. This ability to identify, isolate and exploit the nonstandard is a trait shared by both musicians and employed to devastating effect on Disconnect. Its vocals, sitting somewhere between intonation and spoken word, capture the ear and fizz with simmering power. They are indeed a surprise, coming from a musician specialising in instrumental, field recording-laced ambient musics, but tell intensely evocative stories, weaving poetry into the pair’s grandiose greyscale musical architecture. The record is just as deep, expressive, and arresting as we can expect from Kevin Richard Martin, following his acclaimed rescore of Solaris (released in 2021 on Phantom Limb) and a handful of self-released solo albums that explore a sound just as heavy as The Bug but at a menacingly slower pace. And it is just as evocative and unique as Kamaru’s KMRU canon, each object delicately and purposefully placed so the timbral mosaic builds with shimmering and hypnotic beauty.

The debut Creation Rebel album, originally released on pre-On-U Sound label Hitrun in 1978. The original band, featuring the drummer Eric "Fish" Clarke, had been a studio outfit known as the Arabs, now primarily remembered for their work with Prince Far I, including the classic dub set "Cry Tuff Dub Encounter Chapter 1". The rhythm tracks for this album had been laid in Jamaica but the overdubs were worked up at Gooseberry Studios in London. The experienced Dennis Bovell was the engineer, with the young Adrian Sherwood on his very first production assignment encouraging him to make it “madder” and add more and more effects!

The work by an up-and-coming producer who made his major debut with Nippon Columbia's album "Mystic Islands Dub" in November 2023, exploring the possibilities of Okinawan folk songs and dub!

He gained attention with his work ``Shima DUB'' (2013), which was based on an old song from his roots in Ryukyu, and has released two 7-inch works to date, ``Oshima Yango-bushi'' and ``Sulukill Kuichar.'' The album “Mystic Islands Dub” was also completed immediately. Harikuyamaku is currently one of the most popular dub producers and is highly trusted as an engineer for Okinawa-based artists such as Yukino Inamine and Ododoafrobeat. This album contains 5 psychedelic to trancey dance tracks that are truly ``kachashi (stirring)'', where high-speed swirling sanshin meets deep electronic & dub.

In Late 2023, Om Unit and Marta Pang were invited to perform a special performance at the Caixaforum in Barcelona. The invitees being ‘Lapsus’ who brought the pair together for a performance of 'Acid Dub : Redux’ as part of their DNIT series of events. This cassette is a complete recording of the 45 minute session which consists largely of ‘ambient takes’ on some of tracks currently released from Om Units ‘Acid Dub Studies’ series, as well as some new material specially prepared for the show which featured live visuals by Marta Pang. Some clips of the visuals can be found in the 6-Panel full-colour J-Card booklet which accompanies the cassette. ‘Acid Dub : Redux’ is an unexpected tangent of Om Unit’s ongoing exploration of the 303-in-dub and features a more minimalist approach to the concept, using more of a sense of space to accompany the visual elements. We hope you enjoy the recording as much we enjoyed performing it!

Legendary Jamaican MC Prince Far I's compilation reissued as a 2LP set for Record Store Day!
The compilation "Cry Tuff Chants On U", a collection of tracks by the late legendary Jamaican MC Prince Far I with his On-U Sound house bands Creation Rebel and Singers And Players in the early 1980s, is being reissued on Record Store Day! The limited RSD edition 2LP set includes the cassette released in 2021, as well as another version and two deep cuts that are a must have for true dub/reggae heads!
Prince Far I was a legend of roots reggae both as a producer and in his highly individualistic DJ style while holding the microphone. The album, "Psalms For I," featured his rugged voice singing bible verses over heavy rhythms. Tragically, Prince Far I was killed by gunfire in Jamaica in 1983, but his influence lives on to this day in the recordings of Adrian Sherwood's On-U Sound label.

Cult Japanese Reggae/ Cosmic Dub LP. Featuring an all star line up including: Sly & Robbie, Augustus Pablo, Minako Yoshida + core members of Soul Syndicate and The Wailers. Direct reissue of this 1980 original.

Four riveting, deeply grooving digital-dub productions for his own Ujama label by the great deejay Prince Jazzbo - widely celebrated for such toasts as Imperial I, Mr Harry Skank and Natty Passing Through Rome for the likes of Coxsone Dodd, Glen Brown and Lee Perry. From the late-80s, sides like these announced a new era in reggae. Replay Version sets the mood here - malevolent, sick and paranoid, but haunting, and funky like a train, with cruelly brilliant effects; really a stunning piece of music.

Congo Natty is one man, a family, a movement. Mikail Tafari aka Rebel MC stands at the core, but as “Jungle Revolution” shows, he’s the lens that brings the whole into focus.

Ten tracks long, “Jungle Revolution” clearly lays out the way in which Tafari sees Jungle as a re-boot of roots reggae for a new century. Full of blood and fire, the sternum-buzz of sub-bass, rapid fire drum breaks, sweet hooks, righteous anger and professions of love, it’s the kind of passionate, committed, raw and spiritual, beautiful record that doesn’t come along that often. “The message of reggae is Ras Tafari and Ras Tafari is love,” he explains. “They sang about love but they was also prophesying and talking about the system, talking about things that were going on in the world. I saw Jungle as being that same music, where we were going to spread a message.”

That message is spread by a diverse cast of collaborators. The album was mixed with On-U legend Adrian Sherwood and Skip McDonald (whose career goes back as far as the Sugarhill Band) plays guitar and, on the deep dub of “Revolution,” melodica. Production smarts are martialled from Benny Page (on the straight up ragga-jungle of “UK Allstars”), Vital Elements (the 150bpm anthem “Jah Warriors” and “Jungle Is I and I”), Serial Killaz (the pure roots bounce and rinse out of “Get Ready”) and Boyson & Crooks (creeping technoid paranoia on “London Dungeons”). Vocalists, meanwhile, run a huge range. There’s a who’s who of UK soundsystem culture on “UK Allstars.” True Congo Natty family like Nanci & Phoebe (check out Phoebe “Iron Dread” Hibbert’s verse on “Microchip” and Nanci Correia’s contributions throughout the record) and La La & The Boo Yaa (“Jungle Souljah”) fill the album with sweet hooks and total commitment. Last, there are artists perhaps best known for their work with others, but drawing new sustenance from Congo Natty’s Rasta beliefs and political views. Lady Chann offers a scintillating contribution on “Jungle Is I and I” and Buggsy, best known for his work with Joker, makes a telling intervention.

That this all holds together into a coherent whole that nods back to the legacy of roots reggae and classic jungle without being in thrall to either is down to the clear-eyed vision of the pioneer behind it. That he could make a record so vital, so alive with love and anger and pure joy, shows that Congo Natty the man is more than just a legend. He’s a revolutionary. And that revolution is happening now. 
 

Reset, the acclaimed 2022 collaborative album from Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, has been reimagined by the legendary British dub producer Adrian Sherwood as Reset in Dub. Sherwood created his version of Reset at his On-U Sound Studios with a crew that included such storied musicians as Doug Wimbish and Skip McDonald (Sugarhill Gang, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five).

The first in a series of mini compilations exploring instrumental Dub versions of sought after and long out of print titles from the world of Reggae, Disco, Boogie and House. Many of these versions still contain vocals, snippets here and there drenched in delay or reverb, a style you’ll recognise from many of the Jura Soundsystem edits on the label. The late Glen Adams & Finesse open proceedings with their Island Disco cover of Marvin Gaye’s classic, followed on the A2 by a super rare UK Boogie/Brit Funk mix of Tippa Irie’s ‘Panic’ (shouts to Tippa for personally helping to push through the license) and the A side closes with the 80’s leaning ‘Yes I Do’ from Belgium’s Special Occasion. The first half of the B side comes from Carol Williams with the Special Club Dub mix of ‘Can’t Get Away’, originally a one sided promo only 10” from 1983 complete with spoken word intro from Carol thanking New York’s Metro DJs for their support of the song. The LP closes with a Jura Soundsystem Dubby Edit of La Palace De Beaute’s ‘Sin’ pulling back on the vocal and going heavy on the delay.