On December 5, 2014, Tabou1 Records will release Sly and Robbie’s Dubrising LP, which reunites the riddim killers with dub maestro extraordinaire Paul “Groucho” Smykle for the first time in more than twenty years. The album, which will be released only on collector’s grade vinyl, is the finest dub reggae album of 2014 and my pick for best reggae album of the year.
Anyone unfamiliar with the work of former Island Records in-house mixing engineer Paul “Groucho” Smykle need only drop the needle on any one of several landmark dub reggae recordings he mixed in the 1980s and 1990s. Have a listen to the afro-militant thump of “Kunte Kinte” (the version to Creole’s “Beware of Your Enemies”); Black Uhuru‘s “The Monkey Is A Spy” (“Sinsemilla”), “Fire & Brimstone” (“Journey”) and The Viceroys’ “Dub of Gold” (“Heart of Stone”), all from the 1981 concept dub venture Raiders of the Lost Dub. Check his formidable skills as mixologist on “Ion Storm” and “Android Rebellion” from Black Uhuru’s The Dub Factor. Smykle is the chupacabra of the mixing board, a semi-mythical maestro mixologist of dub who quickly made a name for himself in the post-Marley era with the best rhythm section to emerge from “the Rock” since the brothers Barrett.
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Also from MIDNIGHT RAVER:
TEN THINGS YOU DID NOT KNOW ABOUT SLY AND ROBBIE
and
THE USUAL SUSPECTS: SLY AND ROBBIE – THE MIDNIGHT RAVER INTERVIEW (A 3-PART FEATURE)
LEGENDARY REGGAE 