Back catalogue: Dub

Review: It's always a good day when Al Kent is back with new music. This one on Gamm, Welcome To The Dub, finds him dubbing out some lush disco sounds. The title cut is a loopy and jazz-funk-infused number with lovely hi-hats and noodling chords all radiating joy and uplifting energy. 'Dubanova' then takes a more low-slung route with a sleazy guitar riff and nice live drums embellished with smartly overdubbed vocals coated in echo. 'Happiness & Peace' is a quieter affair with echoing hits and a meandering lead that encourages your mind to do the same.

Review: There's a not a huge amount we know about Koberman's Probandenausweis, other than the fact it sounds very good and will appeal to fans of shamanic, slo-mo, kosmische, drug chug, ambient and experimental electronica. It's a slow building, gradually evolving and immersive trip into a studio, with arrangements valuing silence and emptiness as much as the notes and beats themselves.
Opening on 'Sonnenschirmbrand', a ritualistic number that seems to have the whisper of forgotten souls in the backdrop of a tribalistic beat, layers of noises and percussion adding to the feeling of it taking root in your body well before the bass kicks in. Meanwhile, low ends rule on '32 Ngoesolo', in contrast to 'UH DT101', which uses a twisting synth line as its focal point, allowing other elements to build around it until we're locked into a head nodding oddity.

Review: Workshop is one of those labels that has always operated at the fringes of genre. Deep house and techno are the loose starting points in many cases, but artists never fail to veer off into the shadowy nether worlds that surround those basic forms. Kolorit does that here with two intriguing cuts all with the same name. The first has lumpy scattered drums, scraping sounds, ticking hi-hats and freaky noise samples all peppering them. The second has haunting chords sequences over a ticking sound that is coated in hiss and crackle. It's late night and mysterious. The third has clattering percussion and shimmering synths that rise and fall and build in tension and intensity.

Review: Ohm Records once again come through with the heat, doing the utmost justice to our favourite letter of the Greek alphabet with four slapping deep dubby, subby, wubby tech house cuts. We highly recommend Anton Kubikov's 'Azimut' and Module One's 'Inside The Chamber', both of which chuck echoic on beds of great scaping pads, like hallucinatory angels skirting across heat-hazed horizons.

Review: Australian bass collective Echo Chamber get busy with this supreme VA featuring a range of talented friends old and new. LQ takes the lead with the sublime 'Way Down' that bubbles and flexes in two system-primed forms: the spacious heavyweight Dubkasm mix and LQ and MSHCode's own breakbeat-heavier shakedown. Flip for more LQ goodies as he links up with Kloke for the fittingly titled groove-up 'Computer Bubblers' while Duburban and Galvatron finish the EP with the furious drum funk up 'Let Off The Music'. The only echo here is the reload.

Review: After his silky-smooth vocal feature on Eva Lazarus' Light As Feather, it was inevitable that Mungo's Hi Fi would pursue a project with London-based pure sing-jay Kiko Bun. Ms. Burnett is an ode to a lady friend of distinction, atop a dreamy major key rhythm whose bass-heavy clarity could have come out of Jamaica's Channel One studio in its glory days.

Review: Du men don't come much more legendary or iconic than King Tubby and Horace Andy, so having them together on one album was always going to result in straight fire. And so it proves on The King Tubby Tapes, a double album of deeply affecting roots and lovers rock first issued on Jet Star Records' 'Charm' imprint. It showcases Dubby's audio skills and Andy's distinctive vocal style while including selections from his 1979 album Pure Ranking and a second album of dub remixes. Session men Robbie Shakespeare, Carlton "Santa" Davis, Tony Chin and Bernard "Touter" Harvey all feature this one.

Review: For the fifth volume of The Encyclopedia of Civilizations, Abstrakce's collection of split LPs - in which selected artists offer insight into fascinating ancient cultures - hears them focus this time on the enigmatic Babylon, visited by two of the label's favourite electronic bands currently active. Berlin-based duo Driftmachine take us on a journey between the ancient cities of Akkad, Uruk and Ashur. Bringing together astonishing electronics with a superb and precise sound - floating somewhere between modular ambient, leftfield, abstract dub - every detail has been carefully crafted to produce a complex architecture. Unconventional tribal rhythms recall obscure rituals, while warm, dynamic pulses contract and expand, interacting on their journey along the sandy roads of the Mesopotamian basin. Afterwards, Glasgow-based project Komodo Kolektif delves into the Babylonian vision of magic through the figures of the Kassaptu (witches and wizards), and the use of Mandragora. A blend of both tribal primitivism and a futuristic vision is provided by their vast arsenal of vintage synths and effects units, Eastern metallophones and traditional hand percussion. This is deep, psychedelic electronics that capture the spirit of ancient Babylonian sacred ceremonies and their vision of the cosmos.

Review: Dub's new prince-god-king Jammy's latest album is a steppers' answer to pestilence. 'King Jammy Destroys The Virus With Dub' is a COVID-purging tour of sheer bass, showing off the antiviral properties we didn't know the Pangaeic Jamaican genre had. Of course, it wouldn't be a proper 21st Century dub record without Jammys paying tribute to his roots; here he revisits the work of several golden age greats, including Hugh Mendell, Junior Delgado and Sugar Minott, for a slew of humourously headsy dub wedges like 'Quarantined In Dub', 'A New Normal In Dub', and, yes, 'Dub Tribute To All Hospital Workers'. You get the picture!

Review: Taken from Jah Thomas' Midnight Rock label archives, this series on Radiation Roots explores a treasure trove of unreleased dubs from the mighty King Tubby's studio. These cuts were all mixed by Tubby himself as well as his equally imperious apprentice, Scientist, so you know you're getting the real deal on this heavyweight collection. Pulled from the early 80s and featuring tough rhythms that chime with the shifting sounds at work in Jamaican music at the time, this is a peerless slab of pressure which will stand any serious selector in good stead at the soundclash.

Review: King Tubby's Rastafari Dub was mixed at the celebrated studio wizard's own famous self-titled studio and finds him working on tunes by the Striker Lee-produced likes of Wayne Jarret's 'Satta Dread', several tunes from Johnny Clarkes such as 'Crazy Baldhead' and 'Peace & Love In The Ghetto' as well as Leroy Smart's 'No Love' and 'Trying To Wreck Up My Life'. Add in further gold such as Black Uhuru's 'Sun Is Shining' and you have one of the many crucial and essential albums from King Tubby that needs to be in your collection.

Review: There is frankly an endless amount of dub music from the one and only King Tubby to explore, with both solo albums and collabs all offering bottomless depths in which to get lost. Dub From The Roots was actually the legendary dub technician's first ever exploration of the long-player format and it proved to be one of his best. It is crafted from 14 rhythms by Bunny Striker Lee and then transformed and translated on the mixing desk by Tubby who took it into futuristic and heady new sound worlds with endless chambers of echo.

Review: One person who surely never dubbed too much was the prolific and pioneering King Tubby, but that hasn't stopped Patate Records from putting together a third volume of his work with that sub-title. All of the 12 tracks on this release are classic, rare and/or unreleased and they were ll produced by the man himself in the late 70s during the gold age of the genre. Rodguel Sinclair aka Blackbeard is the producer of the material and his backing band The Ring Craft Posse, which included noted reggae heads like Sly & Robbie, Family Man and Carlton Barrett, all feature next to some of the era's finest vocalists - Delroy Wilson, Horace Andy and Johnny Clarke amongst them. Basically, this is as authentic and essential a collection of 70s reggae as you can get.

Review: Jamtland-born and Malmo-based producer and musician Linus Jonsson, known as Klofink, recorded these tracks between 2021 and 2023. They manifest as immersive sonic landscapes, skillfully blending pastoral and post-industrial elements. The dubby rhythms delve into profound depths, intricate sound designs unfold, and a year's worth of seasons comes and goes within each track. Amidst these global grooves, hints of ancient instruments and clandestine dancing rituals emerge, creating a captivating sonic tapestry. We, for one, find ourselves irresistibly drawn to the rich and evocative musical journey Klofink presents, yearning for more of these mesmerizing compositions.

Review: Double vinyl LP reissue of Linton Kwesi Johnson's smash, underground reggae hit from 1978, 'Forces Of Victory', in celebration of Black History Month by parent label UMC. Produced by Dennis Bovell and LKJ, this is a staunchly British dub poetry classic, with every track, from 'Want Fi Goh Rave' through to 'Time Come' charting Johnson's lifelong grapple with meaning, resistance and revolution in his distinctive reality-checking patois.

Review: 1975 was the year that dub music originator King Tubby teamed up with the Observer All Stars, a production outfit helmed up by Winston 'Niney' Holness. Together, Tubby and Holness handled a barrage of killer remixes of formerly wildly popular units in the mode of reggae, including famous songs by Dennis Brown, Ken Booteh, Delroy Wilson and Sang Hugh. This was one of the earliest albums to attract international interest in dub music beyond the Caribbean, with many other key players in the scene never before having enjoyed a proper release at the time. Now this showcasing of dub's peak in terms of melting-pot inventiveness gets a first-time CD issue.