Dub Like Dirt
Falling in line with studio pioneers likeLee "Scratch" Perry, Vincent "Randy" Chin, and Coxsonne Dodd, King Tubby took Jamaican reggae to new places by fragmenting the dub process further than his peers. Tubby separated the musical elements and their vocal counterparts radically, piecing them back together from the bass and drums upward, though sometimes leaving the rhythm as both skeleton and skin. This collection capitalizes on the art of the B-side, beginning with "Tubby Get Smart," originally issued on Leroy Smart's "Mr. Smart," and "Beat Them in Dub" and "Dub Investigation," both of which appeared originally as B-sides to Cornell Campbell singles. Tubby's stripping away of the instrumental and vocal colors is all over these cuts, but so too is his recoloring of each track. The rhythms are at times crisper, the bass more rubbery, and the vocals more broken to bits than on any of the original tracks. But this was Tubby's art. As a companion to other Blood & Fire dub releases--specifically Yabby U'sKing Tubby's Prophesy of Dread, the Impact All Stars'Forward the Bass, and the excellent Tubby anthologyDub Gone Crazy, this is a great collection. On its own, it might well be the second step to take, afterDub Gone Crazy.--Andrew Bartlett