Baffling Smoke Signal: Upsetter Shop 3
WhenLee "Scratch"  Perry's Black Ark studios was gutted by fire, it was the Jamaican equivalent  of Sun Studio or Motown being incinerated. What music survived was a decidedly  mixed bag; perhaps a fitting metaphor for the mysterious, mercurial--some would  say half-mad--Perry himself. The dozen tracks here (almost all previously  unreleased) hail from Black Ark's 1976 to '78 prime, a fertile period when  Perry's studio dub mastery was at its zenith, and had already entrenched him as  an influential touchstone amongst pop trend makers on both sides of the  Atlantic. Powered by a hypnotic, deceptively laid-back rhythm groove (nicely  underscored by an extended remix of Devon Irons's "Ketch Vampire"), Perry's  spare production incorporates bluesy, studio-processed guitar heroics ("Full  Experience") one moment and jazzy horn flourishes the next. The  eight-minute-plus megamix of Hugh Blackwood and Dr. Alimantado's "Reggae Music"  explores the farther reaches of Perry's dub treatments, while an outtake of  Junior Murvin's glorious "I Was Appointed" is set to another infectiously funky  Perry electro-rhythm track. This is an anthology rife with revelations.--Jerry McCulley