reggae albums
Album Review: Various Artists: Hot Sauce 2 ; 14 gems from the vaults of Trojan Records’ labels 1965-1975
Harlem Shuffle are fast becoming one of our favourite labels specialists in killer reggae reissues and the brilliant Hot Sauce compilation we reviewed a while back. They’re back with a volume 2 of the series, this time dedicated to the Trojan label and its associated UK labels, namely Amalgamated, Beverley’s Records, Blue Cat, Clan Disk, …
Album Review: Various Artists – Hot Sauce Volume 1
Subtitled as ‘14 gems from the vaults of Amalgamated, Black Swan, Blue Cat, Doctor Bird, High Note, Trojan and many more’, the new release from Harlem Shuffle Records has pulled together its first compilation, following on from the string of much needed reggae recordings from the 1960s onwards. Taken from releases dating from 1967 to …
Album Review: Sherwood & Pinch – Man Vs Sofa
‘Man Vs. Sofa’ is the second album by Adrian Sherwood and Rob Ellis aka Pinch and the predecessor to the well received album ‘Late Night Endless’ It’s Dub filled dark waters of electronica that will pull you under with an undercurrent of unforgiving Bass. Put simply It’s Dark Dub Electronica at its best. The combination of talents …
Album Review: Thievery Corporation – The Temple of I & I
Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, aka electronic duo Theivery Corporation have released the fruits of their labour, recording in Jamaica for their latest full lengther and unsurprisingly given the setting, it’s their most dub-centric record to date. They’ve experimented with dub and roots in the past, not for a whole record admittedly, but as with …
New Music: Stephen Marley Review – Revelation Pt. II: The Fruit of Life
Hip hop owes a debt to reggae although it’s one that is not always appreciated or acknowledged. Jamaican foundation DJs of the early 1970s, like U Roy and Big Youth, chanted over riddims that were usually instrumental versions of popular songs in Jamaica and individual sound systems battled to rule the dancehalls. Fast forward to …
Album Review: Bunny Wailer – The Solomonic Singles Pt.1 (Tread Along 1969-1976) & Pt.2 (Rise and Shine)
In the reggae pantheon, no one stands taller than the original Wailing Wailers, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer. These three men, as members of that seminal group, ushered in the roots reggae revolution of the 1970s and still exert a profound influence on the genre and, music in general, today. They were artists …
Compilation – On-U Sound presents: Sherwood At The Controls Volume 2: 1985 – 1990
Okey dokey, Adrian Sherwood is back with the follow up to the first Sherwood at the controls this time hitting from ’85 to ’90. Electro, Industrial, Noise, Hip-Hop, Afrobeat and Dub. This time up we get five unreleased tracks plus four tracks previously only available on vinyl, sleeve notes and the usual goodies, so lets have a stroll …
Album Review: Ziggy Marley – Ziggy Marley
It’s taken Ziggy Marley six albums to run out of ideas on the title front and settle for a self titled effort, and while he’s not quite run out similar ideas for his songs, you feel album number seven may need a change in direction or some fresh ideas or its going to get stayed. …
Album review Rhoda Dakar – Sings The Bodysnatchers
The Bodysnatchers were signed to the legendary British Ska label 2 Tone after only two gigs and were part of that multi-cultural musical revolution in the late 1970s. Yet surreally they never recorded an album so vocalist Rhoda Dakar has finally put that right some four decades later. To realise this dream of finally making …
Album Review – The Orb (feat. Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry) – More Tales from the Orbservatory
The Orb are very reminiscent of a time in my life when, it is fair to say, I did a lot of chillin’. I was a research student but, unlike most of my peers, used to get up very early and get my work done by lunchtime. I would then spend long afternoons listening to …