Who Put the Voodoo 'pon Reggae

by Bret LoveLee "Scratch" Perry and Mad Professor are widely considered two of the most distinctive innovators in reggae music, so it comes as no surprise that nearly every time they collaborate, they produce classic works of heady, experimental dub. Mad Professor is the stylistic heir of the late, great King Tubby -- a master producer who can take even a subpar track and tweak and reshape it into something almost otherworldly. And Lee Perry is a reggae MC without peer: the slap-happy prankster, the charismatic madman, the Mad Hatter at reggae's tea party. Sometimes, as on the album's opening track, "I Am Happiness," Perry taps into a simple Zen sort of wisdom that lets you know with a sly grin that he's crazy -- like a fox. On other tracks, such as the psychedelic "Go and Come Back," Scratch comes off like a demented homeless person pacing back and forth on a street corner, wracked with delusions and muttering to himself under his breath. But no matter where Perry's flights of dub fancy take him, the Mad Professor's tripped-out dub tracks provide a rock-solid foundation, making for some of the most satisfying, mind-altering dub being made near the end of the 20th century.