About Paul Zasky's under the Dubblestandart label released "Reggae Classics“-Album I already tore my mouth wide and wide at this point. The qualitative difference to the predecessor was too big "Dub Realistic"; incomprehensible the decision to work with the experienced, but musically unsophisticated Firehouse crew. Fortunately, the item appeared on Echo Beach - probably the most recyclable label anywhere. And indeed: The first tracks from "Reggae Classics" celebrated their rebirth on "Dub Me crazy" (see also René Wynand's review) - a compilation for which Paolo Baldini dismantled, dusted and polished the recordings. The result was Dub-Remixes that bar everyone Dubblestandart sterility roar fresh and cheeky through the speakers. The next trick of the label was simply the tapes / files Dubto give up visionists and hope for the best. The man delivered: One wonderful, radical reinterpretation the "reggae classics" in the melancholy direction. Barring any original vocals, instead padded with vocoder effects and elegiac carpets of sound, it leaves the original album far behind.
Can you top that? It is worth a try; So off with the recordings of Dennis Bovell - keyword Matumbi, keyword LKJ. He has now given us something like a third incarnation of the album: "Dennis Bovell meets Dubblestandart @ Repulse Reggae Classics“(Echo Beach), as the bulky title is called, knows how to surprise. Instead of an official one Dub-Version (!) Bovell first sings the tracks in again before he gets to it Dub-Mixing makes. Now, it's really not that Bovell is stepping to the microphone for the first time, but the reviewer's expectations were completely different. And so it happens that the cold, awkward-angular, "Denglish" sounding vocals of Paul Zasky are replaced by the no less strange voice of Bovell. It is raw, downright coarse, brings in a shot of dirty soul, appears awkward in its own way: the ethereal “Fly Me to the Moon” cannot overcome gravity and crashes mercilessly; The revised version of “I'm no Robot” with its new backing vocals also seems strangely out of place and at times almost operetta-like due to Bovell's drifting vibrato baritone. A downgrade to the wood class, so to speak, which doesn’t look good on every track, but gives some street credibility: Culture’s “Jah Jah See dem a Come” or Steel Pulse’s “Babylon the Bandit” undoubtedly win.
The vocal tracks are more of a general store or - if you will - a € 1 shop: not everything is of the same quality, not everything keeps what it promises, some things are overpaid even with one euro. Of course, this does not apply to them Dub-Mixes that still need to be discussed, but do not require many words: They are quite successful to excellent; here Dennis Bovell is beyond any doubt, here he can Dub-Master seem: nice earthy, old-school and calm, that's exactly what you expect from the man. That's why there's an unreserved purchase recommendation. What you do with the sung addition is up to you - I put it under "musical joke", which I dig out every now and then for my pleasure.
