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Clive Chin Presents Randy's Dub

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Clive Chin Presents Randy's Dub

Clive Chin Presents Randy's Dub

By Erik Magni on Saturday, October 31, 2015 - Comment

The power of the rhythm showcased on Randy’s Dub.

Sampler

Lee Perry, King Tubby, Scientist and King Jammy are the producers and engineers most often associated with dub, but there are of course other musicians – sometimes overlooked in the course of reggae history – that helped to create, develop and vitalize the genre.

Clive Chin is one of those people. He is probably best known for producing Augustus Pablo’s immortal and much versioned Java as well as being the mastermind behind Java Java Java Java, one of the first dub albums ever released.

Clive Chin presents Randy's Dub But he was also responsible for another legendary dub album – Randy’s Dub. It was originally released in 1975, but less than 200 copies were pressed. It was one of those holy grails until Blood & Fire reissued it in 1998 as Forward the Bass (Dub From Randy’s 1972-1975) with six bonus cuts.

The original version with ten tracks has now been reissued by the heroes over at France’s Onlyroots Records. This edition comes with its original cover sleeve and collects ten tracks produced Clive Chin and mixed by Karl Pitterson. The Wailers and Skin, Flesh & Bones Band are responsible for the rhythms and they are certainly in full swing on this set.

Randy’s Dub collects dub versions of a few instrumentals as well as vocal cuts by the likes of Carlos Malcolm, Sweeny and Winston Morris, who later renamed himself Tony Tuff. The set is rather conservatively mixed and Karl Pitterson hasn’t drenched the cuts with the usual dub wizardry using delay, reverb and sound effects.

The superb rhythms are stripped with added bass and occasional vocal snippets dropping in and out of the mix. Sometimes less is more.