Classics in Dub

by Steven McDonaldDub has always held a fascination for me, and I'm always pleased to hear a traditional-style dub collection such as this one. It isn't really a Half Pint album per se -- it's really a Sly & Robbie album featuring the board work of Peter Chemist; Half Pint is reduced to a few phrases heard here and there -- Freedom Fighter has him sampled and looping in the background, for example. The result is about riddim, not melody and words, and the riddim rides up lean and mean at times, alleviated by surreal echo effects. This is a dub album for low, weird lighting and the small hours of the night (and where is Mikey Dread on the late-late-so-early shift at JBC radio, eh?), to light a spliff to rather than to dance to. This one rides up in the riddim rider cartridge alongside Scratch Perry's stuff.