Dub Evolution October 2009

Good Dub-Albums often cross my path. But Dub-Albums that really inspire me are rather rare. Hey-O-Hansen's "Sun and Moon" (Pingipung / Rough Trade) is such an album. The cover made me think of weird noise jokes à la Einstürzende Neubauten, but when the CD finally played in the background during breakfast, my girlfriend and I exchanged a puzzled look, put the newspaper aside and turned up the volume. What crazy music! 100% reggae, but played in a way that has never been heard before. The sound is reminiscent of Peter Presto (review in Riddim August 2006), i.e. of melodic compact electronics. Unlike Presto's sound, they are Dubs from Hey-O-Hansen but strangely tricky and yet very simple. It's like playing reggae on the wrong instruments - but really virtuoso. Individual sequences of sounds seem disharmonious and misplaced, only to be wonderfully closed and catchy in the interplay. This is how it ends z. B. a weird accordion that plays over a warm, pulsating offbeat, in a gently breathed chanson, while detailed lo-fi gimmicks take over the direction afterwards. In another song we hear a heavy, sluggish Lee Perry Black Ark sample accompanied by a harp that eventually gives way to a female voice, only to make way for the accordion again. Each piece is an excursion into a fascinating sound landscape, in which a surprise awaits behind every hill and every tree. The liner notes quite aptly speak of “artistic rebellion”. Instead of obeying the genre conventions, a radical break is made with them and with it the door to a completely new one Dub-Experience. Helmut Erler and Michael Wolf are the names of the two creative minds behind Hey-O-Hansen, come from Austria, where - according to their own statement - they were inspired by the offbeat of Tyrolean folk music, played in a rock steady band in the 1980s and in the middle of the Emigrated to Berlin in the 1990s. There they have been tinkering their sound escapades in their own studio for 14 years, which they bring to the audience in a wide variety of places in a wide variety of formats. What has been created in this way in the years since 1995 is now being published on a CD for the first time, carefully compiled and sorted. And this CD - I'm already sure of that - will be in mine Dub-Charts ranked number one in 2009.

Neil Perch, mastermind of Zion Train, likes to point out that his album "Live As One" won the 2008 Reggae Grammy. On closer inspection, the “Reggae Grammy” that Mr. Zion Train is so proud of actually turns out to be a “Reggae Academy Award”, which is presented in Kingston and has nothing to do with the US Grammy Awards. Still - probably euphoric by the success - Neil Perch has Dub- Actors from all over the world asked for remixes of the tracks on the album, which are now collected on one CD as Zion Train, "Live As One Remixed" (Universal Egg) have appeared. The 15th Dubs come from Italy, the Netherlands, Brazil, France, Croatia, Greece, Poland, Mexico and of course from England (but not a single mix from Germany!). The most famous names are Rob Smith, Vibronics, Brain Damage, and Weeding Dub. Some tracks are represented several times ("Boxes And Amps" four times), which allows the mixes to be compared with each other and thus the essence of Dub to trace. However, the remixes stay all too true to the tenor of the original. Only De Niro delivers a massive one Dubstep mix of “What A Situation” from and Dub Terror transforms “Boxes And Amps” into a beautifully nostalgic jungle track.

The album also comes from Universal Egg "Dub Terror "(Universal Egg) from: Dub Terror. I have to admit that the CD has been lying around with me for two or three months - which has a certain expressiveness. I can't think of too much about the album produced in Warsaw. The tracks follow the classic UKDub-Scheme and flirt with occasionally Dubstep - but do not gain new perspectives from this genre. The ingredients are actually right, such as well-chosen samples, a clean sound and six good guest vocalists, but the result is not really exciting. There is simply a lack of good compositions (if you are at Dub wants to talk about it at all).

But back to the subject of “Remix”. In 1982 the punk rocker Ruts CD recorded their album "Rhtyhm Collision" in the then newly founded Ariwa Studio of Mad Professor, which mixed punk rock with reggae and a little funk. The album never received much attention, but became an underground icon that has sold around 100.000 copies to date, including all reprints and re-issues. In 2002, Neil Perch of Zion Train took on the album and produced one Dub-Remix the set. Today, again a few years later, the third generation is at work: deconstructed, reconstructed, coiffed, refurbished and refurbisheddubbt by the bass disciples these days, the album appears under Ruts DC, "Rhythm Collision Re> loaded" (Echo Beach) now one more time. Rob Smith (whom we know from Smith & Mighty and the More Rockers) remixed five of the thirteen tracks, Dreadzone took on two tracks, as did the Cologne-based electronics tinkerers Salz and Steve Dub (the programmer for the Chemical Brothers). All those involved in the big Ruts DC relaunch followed the path that African Headcharge once called the "Path Of Respect" and largely retained the identity of the original. Although we are unmistakably reggaeDub have to do, the sound of punk rock remains omnipresent and the voices of the rods stick out crisp again and again from the sea of ​​bass. An idiosyncratic mix of styles that works perfectly in this form.

Incredible 20 years after the album "Dubvision “sends the Dubvisionist Felix Wolter under the title "Dubvision II "(percussion & electronics) a follow-up album out into the world. Here he has gathered “melodious tracks from friends” who made their recordings with him in the staccato and Time Tools studios. In addition to The Vision and the Herbman Band, these friends also include Gentleman, Tamika & Mamadee and the Far East Band. Maybe it's the age, maybe also the decades of experience. Felix Wolter decided in any case for carefully selected relaxed, melodic and wonderfully classically played tracks and put them into equally "melodious" Dubs transformed, to which you can groove comfortably, but which can also be listened to attentively and then reveal thousands of little gimmicks and nice ideas. So begins z. B. the first piece “Andrés Dub“With a nice, melodic brass section, then after two verses“ into the mix ”, where virtuoso percussions gently play in the foreground, which are then replaced by a nice guitar melody. Everything as a matter of course, logical, consistent. Of course we're not hearing a musical revolution or cutting edge hereDubs in the forefront of Dubstep and electronics. We hear “only” really good craftsmanship, sounds with soul and Dubs with warmth. And it's so incredibly beneficial to just listen to good music and not have to be progressive and open minded. In any case, I would like to expressly wish for more Dub-Works by Felix!

Now something very nice is coming - from the Revival selection: King Tubby & The Clancy Eccles All Stars, “Sound System International Dub LP "(Pressure Sounds). This one produced by Clancy Eccles Dub-Set is so incredibly obscure that no one, "really NO ONE" - as the press release emphasizes - had ever heard of it. When an old vinyl copy turned up in early 2009, the Pressure Sounds geeks went crazy, researched, remastered and rereleased the LP, now in the original cover with previously unseen photos of King Tubby (the CD also contains five bonus tracks). The album documents Eccle's advance into that Dub-Genre, for which he had King Tubby remix ten tracks recorded by Dynamics in the early 1970s. Tubby mixed the recordings sparingly and transparently, stripped them except for drum & bass and almost completely dispensed with vocals. Formerly tubby style at it's best!

That Dub what is now a truly international style is shown once again in the album "Like River To Ocean" (Amaru Music) from the Irish music duo Avatar was recorded and its cover is adorned with Japanese calligraphy. Behind Avatar are the two instrumentalists James Kennedy and Tony O'Flaherty. Both born and raised in the southwest of Ireland, they say they are inspired by the Irish landscape, its beauty and solitude. The clear water, the fresh air and the stoic mountains form a natural harmony in which to sit, contemplate and about Dub lets think. So it's not surprising that ambient sounds like the noise of waves appear again and again in the very relaxed pieces. Above all, it is the soft sounds of the brass that create the Dub of the two Irish. But there are also two pieces that are strange: “Joyfull Dub"Sounds like the drums come from the rhythm repertoire of a Hammond organ and" Kingdom I Dub“- actually a nice piece - is accompanied by praise for Haile Selassie. The connection to the Irish landscape does not want to reveal itself to me here.

Finally we give ourselves a real UK steppers droning - even if the music comes from France: "World Wide Dub"(Control Tower) by The Dub Machinist. There is not much of the Lord Dub-Machinists known - but one thing can be said for sure: he takes his name seriously. His pounding as if moved by a large, steam-powered machine colossus Dubs through space and time and let the floor and walls vibrate. Brutal and minimalist. Nothing, but nothing at all about them Dubt is new or innovative - and there is only one idea: oomph! But the total consistency with which this idea is thought through makes the album an experience. In the style of Heavy Metal, pure “Heavy Dub" speak. You need something like this from time to time to have your eardrum massaged. Ah, that's good!