Addis Records have nothing to do with Addis Pablo. And therefore not with me Dub. In fact, Addis Records is a veteran reggae label from Geneva that now looks back on a thirty-year history. Impressive - although the release list is surprisingly short in view of this. But it doesn't matter, because we are currently only interested in one new release: Addis Records Meets Umberto Echo: "Riddim wise“ (Addis) – and that is a Dubalbum (or at least an instrumental album). The Rhythms are completely digital - which they don't try to hide. All classic reggae beats, along with vocal versions found elsewhere on the label. Umberto Echo is not involved here as a remixer, but as a co-producer. That might also explain the crisp and rich sound. Very harmonious and highly dynamic. I like it. I could only blame the album for not having any recognizable arc of suspense and no rough edges. So that's exactly what's missing, what good ones are good for Dub-Mixes actually matters. That's certainly because "Riddimwise" bills itself as a version compilation rather than a Dub-Album understands.
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Addis Records Meets Umberto Echo: Riddimwise
2 Responses to “Addis Records Meets Umberto Echo: Riddimwise”
I've often been encouraged here to continue commenting and to provide a little entertainment or amusement here and there. I like doing that by nature, but I've often asked myself what's supposed to be so amusing about it. Of course, every now and then I try to make a funny saying or to give a little insight into my "crazy" world of thoughts. But most of the time I think that my impressions were perhaps far too superficial and my conclusions were so wrong that I often have to hope, "well, hopefully nobody will check that"... ;-)
But once the reputation is ruined, life is really unabashed. And so I have no problem with saying that I really didn't notice that the riddims here were all "recorded" digitally. Quite a few producers and sound engineers have already managed to achieve “crisp and rich sound”, but here it almost sounds organic to me. One of those statements where real music experts could possibly break out in laughter. (I can hear you laughing up to here….. ;-) …..) But what should I do? That is exactly the impression that my "SoundSystem" gives me here. Only when I know that it's "completely digital" does it occur to me that a real drummer would improvise a bit more and certainly would have set one or the other accent more than is digitally implied here. The bass sounds very warm and powerful here without booming in the slightest. You have to get that right with digital basses. Seems to be possible for many these days. “Our” Umberto certainly has it all. At least two beautiful and, above all, crispy riddims made it into my Intsrumantal list before the reviewer ;-) even thought of a review. They've been there for about a month and if they haven't died, they will stay there. Sounds like a saying, but on Spotify sometimes some super awesome tunes just die/ Dubs & instrumentals ………. Then you really asked yourself “against” ……. "What's wrong with jelejen" ?!?
So long ……………… lemmi
thanks for the review,its always a real pleasure to me to read opinion of other passionate music lover.
Just to be precise, the riddim are not 100% digital. U can hear live bass on 4 of dem, live guitar on 5 of dem and even some live horns on 2 of dem (pilgrim and rumpus). From our first release we always like to mix digital and live instruments.
Umberto Echo didn't "co-produce" the project but has mixed it on a whole.
As u notice its really a riddim album and not a dub one and im glad u notice the difference.
big up!