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Dubbing, the art of dub engineering, taking a tune and reworking it, re-mixing it and thus giving the tune a new direction, an alternative vibe, making something new from what’s already gone before.
For 30 years now the UK’s legendary dub master Mad Professor has delighted dub followers worldwide with his unmistakeable style of dubbing it up and dubbing you crazy with over 40 albums under his belt including many collaborations. Now comes an almighty collab with one of the UK’s most celebrated reggae bands this decade Pama International.
Pama International, now coming up to 10 years in the reggae arena, with this their 8th album release, a dub version of their smash album ‘Outernational’.
What strikes me straight away with ‘Rewired! In Dub’ is the absolute club friendly nature of the album, a good chunk of these tunes could fit very happily within a town centre or city nightclub amongst the funk, soul and street vibes being selected by the club DJ. With this album the listener is treated to just about every aspect of dub engineering tricks of the trade ever invented, indeed the Prof is responsible for some of these tricks of the trade from time. Elements of King Tubby’s high pass filter style mixing (Dubstance) Prof working the faders on the riddim track (Saviour Dub) Echo’s and delays superbly executed across the whole album all with a thoughtful approach in keeping the main elements of the original songs intact. It’s funky, soulful and ever so reggae. Without hesitation the most radio friendly reggae album coming from the UK in over a decade.
Dub I Wait takes the listener down Mad Professor memory lane, a thinking man’s dub with deep in the mix frequency tricks both on bass track and the high end elements whilst Question Dub contains that strange voice manipulation tactic made famous by the prof back in the day by taking the listener up to the cosmic dub belt and keeping them up there for ages! Another example of this dub style can be heard on Inheritance Dub. One cannot deny the superb song writing and ultra professional playing of instruments that Pama International has given the reggae and soul fan during the past 10 years and no doubt will continue to do so and their choice of enlisting Mad Professor to dub up their master tapes has to be the coup of the decade. An awesome journey through dub’s past and present.
It’s all there in this album, It’s the Dub sound of now…and in fine style.
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