Online Reggae Magazine

Articles

Articles about reggae music, reviews, interviews, reports and more...

Maxfield Avenue Riddim

Home
Articles
Reviews
Maxfield Avenue Riddim

Maxfield Avenue Riddim

By Tomas Palermo on Monday, August 25, 2014 - 1 comment

Capture the Echoey Depths and Dread Qualities of Channel One.

Sampler

If you really want to get into Maxfield Avenue, the new co-released riddim from Reggae In Da City/Big League productions, tracks down the superb instrumental dub version to singer Koxx's track "Believe" (I swear it exists even it's not included in the commercially-available digital album). Put the track on repeat and marvel at how it captures the echoey atmosphere and dread qualities of that original Maxfield Avenue, Kingston, Jamaica studio-Channel One-which is presumably is the inspiration for this fine riddim set.

Maxfield Avenue While Channel One had the talents of producer Junjo Lawes, Roots Radics as house band and Scientist on the mixing board for it's classic sessions, this riddim comes pretty close to that heavy, rub-a-dub vibe. Melodically-speaking, the track isn't a far cry from John Holt's "Police In Helicopter" 's minor key trod-the guitar plucking and throbbing bass riffs give it that feel. The addition of live-sounding horn arrangements also add to Maxfield Ave's overall strength.

That's to take nothing away either from the dynamic performances delivered by Morgan Heritage ("Perform And Done"), Anthony B ("Build Back"), Cali P and the aforementioned Koxx. The later singer is a rising talent to be sure, blessed with a tremendously rich voice and intriguing lyric content. But it's probably the Anthony B and Morgan Heritage tracks that'll pull you in at first - they're as good as they come from these two reggae icons. The artists, paired with a truly weighty backing version, make Maxfield Avenue a riddim thoroughfare worth traversing.