Artist.......: Earl Chinna Smith
Album........: Dub It!
Label........: Nature Sounds
Genre........: Reggae
Catnr........: 107
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: Oct-31-2005
str.date.....: 000-00-2004
quality......: VBR/44.1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: n/a
track title time
01. Dub It 03:01
02. Dub System 04:16
03. Every Time Eye Ear De Dub 02:52
04. Whiteman Dub 04:19
05. Whe Mi Dub 04:06
06. Hard Times 04:55
07. Butta Pan Dub 03:31
08. Naw Dub 03:24
09. Postpone Dub 03:29
10. Free Up The Dub 03:29
11. Whe Mi Dub (Alt) 04:06
12. White Dub 04:16
Runtime 45:44 min
Size 62,3 MB
Release Notes:
Dub It! is essentially the dub version of Jamaican
poet Mutabaruka's groundbreaking LP debut, Check
It!, originally released in 1983 on Earl "Chinna"
Smith's High Times label. Although it received
little to no radio airplay, Check It! almost
single-handedly put the dub poetry subgenre on the
musical map, due in part to Mutabaruka's
impassioned, incendiary lyrics, but also because of
the tight, solid play of the session band Smith put
together for the project. Billed as the High Times
Players, the musicians included guitarist Smith,
Augustus Pablo on keyboards and melodica,the
Wailers rhythm section, and ace horn players Dean
Fraser, Bobby Ellis and David Madden, among others.
What makes Dub It! stand out, now that it has
finally been released some 20 years after it was
tracked, is the mixing approach used by engineers
Steven Stewart and Errol Brown. While the murky,
ominous reverb and echo delay that is endemic to
dub is present here, it is used appropriately
rather than constantly, which means the ensemble
roots playing of the musicians is allowed to shine
through, and when the mixes phase shift into deep
dub territory, it is a clear celebration of the
music rather than an electronic distortion of it.
The album as a whole has a seamless, suite-like
quality, but among the key tracks are "Whiteman
Dub," which features Pablo's trademark melodica
runs, the eerie, almost industrial "Whe Mi Dub?" (a
second, alternate mix of this one adds a small
vocal choir and turns from eerie to downright
spooky), and "Postpone Dub," with its wonderfully
syncopated piano. The end result of all this is an
album that stands on its own quite capably, and
even listeners unfamiliar with Mutabaruka's Check
It! will have no problem appreciating this long
delayed gem.