Singers & Players: War of Words

Anyone who occasionally looks around the online music stores and streaming services will find that the complete ON-U-Sound-Back catalog is currently being put online. What could be more obvious than one of the label's most legendary albums, "War of words“(On-U Sound) to donate a proud analogue vinyl reissue? The original was released in 1981 on the American label 99 Records and only a year later on On-U-Sound in Great Britain. It was the debut of the “Singers & Players”, a virtual and never clearly defined collective of different reggae musicians, deejays and singers. At that time, producer Adrian Sherwood drove the vision of 15 to 20 musicians in changing formations, the on-U-sound cosmos and his very special idea of ​​post-punk roots and the experimental Dub let develop. At the center of this historic album is the gentle voice of Bim Sherman, which is featured on five of the seven tracks. In sharp contrast to this is Prince Far Is's rough organ, which can be heard especially on the track “Quanté Jubila” in a duet with Crucial Tony. In between (and in the extended versions) are Dubs interspersed - you can hear them today with a view to the next 35 years or so Dub-History - still sound incredibly innovative. But it is not so much the individual pieces that make the album so special, but rather their combination - especially since the four extended versions collected here are already a combination of vocal, deejay and DubVersion are. Through this combination, the idiosyncratic spatial Dub-Syndicate sound and the distinctive throughout Dub-Mix of all tracks, the album has a strong conceptual character - which in turn results in a fascinating flow in which the listener inevitably loses himself. Some rediscovered, previously unreleased tracks from the “War of Words” sessions will also see the light of day for the first time on the EP “War of Version”.