| Kingston,
Jamaica, in the time that many regard as the
Golden Age of Reggae. Channel One Studio's.
The Roots Radics. Who knows their Dubs shall
surely think of the legendary Greensleeves
Series, in which Dub Mixer THE SCIENTIST
transformed quite a few riddims into spaced
out material, which was then released on
thematic albums with titles such as
"Scientist encounters Pacman" or
"Scientists meets the Space
Invaders". "We was the ones that
made Scientist, me and Junjo - it wasn't
nobody else.", I read Linvall Thompson
saying in the liner notes of Phoenix Dub.
Linvall surely isn't unknown within circles
of Reggae Connoisseurs. There are numerous
tracks and albums that have him as producer
or singer. He was one of the main forces in
Jamaican Reggae Music for a long time. His
album "I Love Marijuana" has
reached legendary status in some circles.
Phoenix Dub re-introduces Linvall a new Dub
and Reggae massive, in an album that could
be described as a missing chapter in the
Greensleeves Series I wrote about earlier,
be it not that it goes a little further than
that.
The album is a re-release by UK based
MOTION RECORDS, packed with 14 quality
riddims. Almost all tracks are mixed by The
Scientist, and a few by King Tubby and
Prince Jammy. This alone will make Phoenix
Dub go beyond the Greensleeves Series. Many
(Scientist) Dubs are mixed in exactly the
same style, but Tubby and Jammy each add a
different angle to the work. A true all-star
list of legendary Godfathers of Dub Mixing!
And not only the Dubbing engineers are
great, who can beat the riddims played by
original Jamaican Studio bands such as the
Revolutionaries and the Roots Radics? For an
album centred around the person of Linvall
Thompson, it really shows the versatility of
this singer/producer from Kingston, Jamaica.
Great music, great musicians, great liner
notes from the author of the Lee Perry
Biography "People Funny Boy"
including an interview with Linvall, and
everything mixed by the Jamaican originators
of Dub. I would strongly recommend this
album to each and everyone with a heart that
beats on the rhythm of the drum and the bass
that make Roots Reggae.
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