09/30/09
I don't know if it's the sudden crispness in the air or just my mood, but lately the only music I want to listen to is dub and reggae (and early dancehall) from the 1970s and early 1980s.
Reggae's gotten an unfortunate rap. More than a generation of listeners probably associate reggae most intimately with "Legend," the ubiquitous Bob Marley sampler beloved of frat boys, hippies, and all other manner of underachievers from whom one would want to distance oneself. Maybe they've seen "The Harder They Come," the Jimmy Cliff vehicle that, while excellent, does little to shatter stereotypes. Rastafarianism, with its funny hats, smelly hair, weed-based religion and sing-songy patois, is the ideology that's inextricably linked to Marley and reggae writ large, and it's easy fodder for (admittely sometimes quite funny) parodies.
But the earnest, wholly original sound that emerged fully-formed from the Jamaican soundsystems of the 1970s is often light years from the take-it-easy mediocrity of "Jammin.'" Like Motown before it, good reggae is charged with depths of meaning, sadness and originality. The themes most common to reggae are righteousness, patience in the face of hardship and injustice, morality, and lost love -- in other words, deeply human concerns presented with feeling and without irony.
But not without originality. The producers who developed reggae in the 1970s and 1980s were pioneers working without a net. Some of the first musicians to recognize the value of the mixing board as an instrument in its own right, they paved the way for thousands of techno, R&B and hip hop producers in the decades to follow.
There are records from the reggae canon that have been dear to me for years and years, but it took hearing Ini Kamoze's Island debut in a Greenpoint bar the other night to wake my dormant interest in the sound. That brief album, marked by Sly & Robbie's razor-sharp production skills, just seems very appropriate right now, especially the machine gun snares of the opening cut, "Trouble You A Trouble Me."
So I took a look through my collection. It didn't take long to round up my favorites, which include many installments of Soul Jazz's excellent and sprawling re-issue catalog of timeless tracks from Coxson Dodd's Studio One label. Studio One Disco, with its dusty laser sounds and sleepy, weird re-castings of classic songs by Chic and Donna Summer, is a great place to start if you're not initiated. Adrian Sherwood's productions for On-U Sound are also among my favorite productions.
It's the Wackies sound, however, that towers over the rest for me. Bronx-based, many of Lloyd "Bullwackie" Barnes' tracks languished in obscurity for decades, out-of-print and unavailable except to die-hard collectors. Luckily, legendary Berlin-based techno production duo Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus, also know as Basic Channel, have made it a pet project in recent years to re-issue the key numbers in the Wackies catalog. Since beginning their re-issue program in 2002 with "Lover's Rock" by Love Joys (one of the most glittering jewels of all), they've re-pressed an impressive number of indispensable full-length albums and 12"s from giants like Sugar Minnott, Horace Andy, Prince Douglas, Wayne Jarrett and Junior Delahaye.
Almost all of these albums are excellent. if I had to recommend a few of the Wackies reissues to a curious newcomer, my top picks would be "Lover's Rock," "Reggae (Showcase)" by Delahaye, "Dancehall Showcase" by Sugar Minnott, the immaculate "Dancehall Style" by Horace Andy, and "Black World Dub" billed to Bullwackies All Stars.
The Wackies sound is unabashedly electronic, and stripped to the bone. The vocals are as effusive and languid as Marvin Gaye in his prime, and the naked productions recall the analog warmth and angularity of italo disco. But ultimately what's most impressive on an album like "Lover's Rock" is the atmosphere. Wackies productions are impecabbly constructed, but it's the warm, romantic ambience that really seduces.
Ernestus and von Oswald have also resurrected the original album covers, which are just as alluring as the music. The raw, DIY graphic aesthetic feels fresh and of-the-moment. If the music somehow doesn't manage to hook you, the artwork surely will.
These albums are best enjoyed on a sound system with ample bass, EQed the way you might listen to rock or disco albums of the same vintage. The music also works great on the go, in a good pair of headphones. Minnott's "Leave out Folly" or Horace Andy's "Spying Glass" present the landscape of New York in a whole new light.
Do yourself a favor and pick up several Wackies re-issues. Now that the morning light is different and there's a chill in the air, give reggae another chance.
