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Burning Spear
Living Dub, Vol. 5
(Burning Music)
First Appeared in The Music Box, November 2006, Volume 13, #11
Written by Douglas Heselgrave
Music, these days, is an amorphous, ever-changing art form. A song isn’t just
a song anymore, and committing sounds to tape doesn’t guarantee that the
original incarnation of a tune will remain its definitive version. In recent years,
artists from Beck to Ben Harper have issued completely rearranged material from
their latest albums. Sometimes, the reason for this is no more than a callous
money grab or a way to appeal to the club-going demographic. At other times, as
in the case of Neil Young’s alternate approach to Living with War, the
new renditions are attempts to rectify the dissatisfaction that an artist feels
with the originally released renderings of the material. With Living Dub,
Vol. 5, Winston Rodney a.k.a. Burning Spear has created a true rarity in
that the re-imagined music is nothing short of a revelation. Five years in the
making, the outing is a brilliant re-conceptualization of Calling Rastafari,
Burning Spear’s superb endeavor from 1999.
Perhaps a little cultural and historical context is in order. In the reggae
world, dub is strictly old-school — a style of music that predates the current
remix craze by at least 25 years. Dub grew out of Jamaica’s competitive
sound-system culture, where DJs strove to attract customers to their dances by
playing versions of current hits that could not be heard anywhere else. A dub
version was usually recorded as the B-side of a single, where the drums and bass
were emphasized and the melody lines and most of the vocals were erased. This
allowed the DJ to talk, rap, or sing over the recording. In the 1970s, most
singers recorded dubs of their songs, and some artists and producers, such as
Lee "Scratch" Perry and Mad Scientist, released full-length dub albums. These
early recordings influenced the evolving sounds of hip-hop, techno, jungle, and
ambient music. American musicians like bass player Bill Laswell continue to
expand and blend pure dub sounds, pushing them into new territory, but for the
most part, Jamaican dub reggae has fallen into repetitive and wholly clichéd
drum and bass patterns that offer little to a listener who is hearing the tracks
outside of a dance hall’s heady atmosphere.
What a treat, then, it is to hear Jamaican dub move into new, conceptual
frontiers! Not merely a restatement of the tunes from Calling Rastafari,
Living Dub, Vol. 5 is a hard-hitting journey through the history of
reggae. Sometimes roots-y and sometimes futuristic, Rodney’s vocals and congas
weave the tracks together in order to form a musical pilgrimage that runs the
gamut from dirt road acoustics to outer space keyboard jams. Bound by a lyrical
and melodic sensibility that is missing from most dub music, the tracks on
Living Dub, Vol. 5 flow seamlessly from one to another as new sounds and
samples from Burning Spear’s sonic palette slinkily reveal themselves with each
journey through the endeavor. The sense of joy that emanates from the album is
inescapable, and each song is full of enough killer horn lines to brighten even
the bleakest November days. Living Dub, Vol. 5 is a testament to the
healing power of song, and it serves as a reminder to listeners that music
exists primarily to uplift the human spirit. This is a crucial and essential
recording! 
Living Dub, Volume 5 is available from
Amazon.com. To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
Click Here!
For UK orders, please
Click Here!
Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2006 The Music Box
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