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KEITH HUDSON
Nuh Skin Up
Release date :
03-26-2007
Label :
Pressure Sounds
Tracklist :
01. Ire Ire
02. Troubles
03. Dreadful Words Dub
04. Nuh Skin Up Dub
05. Mercy
06. Bad Things Dub
07. Keeping Us Together
08. Desiree Dub
09. No Commitment
10. Words Dub
11. Bad Things Dub (Version Two)
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REVIEW
Review written by Benoit Georges
on Wednesday, April 18th 2007 - 10 605 views
Pressure Sounds adds a stone to the great history of dub with this reissue of a 1982 Keith Hudson album. Less revolutionary and pioneering than "Pick a dub", released in 1974, but still propped up by an inevitably masterly Soul Syndicate, "Nuh skin up" is made up mainly of dub versions drawn from the album "From one extreme to another".
An independent producer and, at times, a ghetto dentist, Keith Hudson made a name for himself in 1968 with Ken Boothe's hit Old fashioned way. He was also among the first producers to immortalise the voices of the deejays U-Roy and Dennis Alcapone on his versions. In 1972, he produced Big Youth's S 90 Skank, going so far as to bring a real motorbike into the studio for the needs of the intro. Keith Hudson's artistic personality is however hard to reduce to these few successes as a producer: a tinkerer and unorthodox singer, he is characterised, a bit like Lee Perry, by deep lyrics in the form of incantation and discordant singing. This approach, to say the least conceptual and disconcerting, would guide him until his death: misunderstood by the majority of the Jamaican public, his work would on the other hand be a major inspiration for the English dub scene.
As far as the sound itself is concerned, this "Nuh skin up" remains rather classic compared with what was being done at the time. The Soul Syndicate riddims, used on the album "From one extreme to another" released in 1979, are nonetheless of great quality. The dub arrangements that showcase them are on the other hand characteristic of Keith Hudson's work: heavy on bass, very airy and mystical, they stretch out on some tracks to reach almost 7 minutes. Keith Hudson's haunting voice accompanies the different moods and sets the tone on each intro. We move from the quiet Ire Ire, Keeping us together, Desiree (whose intro chords are uncannily like Bob Marley's Jammin) or Bad things (in two versions and used for Delroy Wilson's Sharing the night together) to darker tracks such as Troubles, No commitment or Words, drowned in organs and modern effects.
Perfectly completing the triptych begun by the reissue of the albums "Pick a dub" and "Brand", "Nuh skin up" finishes making available to the greatest number this experimental and avant-garde music, the dark side of Keith Hudson, rightly nicknamed "the dark prince of reggae". |
De toutes façons tout ce qui est associé au Soul Syndicate ne peut qu'être très bon...C'est un album effectivement envoutant, mystique..."Bloody Eyes" est magnifique et delicieusement posée...Je conseillerai au personnes desirant l'acquerir la version plus longue de l'album, avec notamment "Bloody Eyes".
Ca ne se chronique pas, ca s'écoute, tellement bon
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