Random Review #4- Prince Jammy- Uhuru in Dub

CSA Records, 1982

 Among the first generation of Jamaican dub reggae engineers, King Tubby's assistant (and later rival) Prince Jammy has always been somewhat unfairly neglected. Unfortunately “Uhuru in Dub,” a 1982 collection of mixes he did for the roots band Black Uhuru, isn't the best album to make a case for that. At a time when producers like Scientist, Lee Perry, and, over in the UK, Adrian Sherwood were busy elevating remixes to something close to composition, “Uhuru in Dub” is an unremarkable by-the-numbers dub album. 

The basslines of the 10 songs here are largely unmemorable, drums are treated with the usual delay and flanger and Jammy's use of horn, guitar and vocal snippets seems fairly arbitrary. Some harsh, almost “glitchy” sounding fades on “Mystic Mix” and a catchy organ riff on “African Culture” were the only things that stood out to me. Next please.

Random Review Week #1- Carl Craig & Moritz von Oswald- ReComposed

Deutsche Grammophon, 2008

 

We kick off Random Review Week with a risky concept: Take two techno icons from Detroit and Berlin respectively and let them remix Ravel's “Bolero” and Mussorgsky's “Pictures at an Exhibition,” two classical works ubiquitous enough to have become cliches. With a premise like that, it's easy to make a lame novelty record where a couple string themes you've probably heard in at least 5 car commercials get the four-on-the-floor bassdrum treatment.

Thankfully, that's not what “ReComposed” is, but despite the general tastefulness and musical competence on display, it's all a bit on the safe side. The name of the game here is ambient-leaning techno more geared towards home listening than club use. It's almost exactly what you'd expect from a Moritz von Oswald / Carl Craig collab too. Both the former's trademark use of delay and reverb and the latter's taste for warm melodies are in full effect, but the use of the source material is often a bit superfluous, particularly on the “Bolero” half of the album which lasts from tracks 1 to 5.

Over the course of 32 minutes the music slowly moves from warm synth drones reminiscent of krautrockers like Cluster and Harmonia to dubbed-out horn samples and marching snare drums. And then, just when things are about to get interesting, it turns into something that appears to contain no samples at all and sounds like a track from Moritz von Oswald's 90s dub techno duo Basic Channel, complete with wavering, synthscapes and filtered kickdrums. The remaining 3 tracks focus on “Pictures at an Exhibition.” “Movement 5” unfortunately sounds a kinda “strings plus techno beat” thing talked about earlier in places, but the closing 14-minute “Movement 6” is the album's strongest point. A reggae-like shaker-and-bongo rhythm(!) is enveloped in a gauze of manipulated samples and spacy synthetic swooshes. It's an odd combination, but it works well and uses the source material in an unexpected way instead of casting it aside

“ReComposed” is a well-crafted and enjoyable album from two towering figures in electronic dance music, but as a techno-meets-classical experiment, it's kind of a disappointment.