A reissue of dubs "made in" Channel One, dating from the time when the Hookim brothers' studio was at the cutting edge of musical innovation in Jamaica, Pressure Sounds' latest project, entitled "Drum sound", sets out to highlight the truly revolutionary playing of the drummer Sly Dunbar, who was attached to the studio. Although most of the record offers versions, more or less rare, of well-known tracks, Pressure Sounds wanted to pre-empt the purists' criticism by offering a genuine unreleased rarity, a veritable holy grail for collectors.
Studio Channel One, located on Maxfield Avenue in Kingston, and its label Well Charge, had already released several dub albums between 1974 and 1980, in a marketing strategy aimed at prolonging the life of riddims: vinyl lovers cannot forget the famous "Revolutionaries sounds" with its portrait of Che Guevara on the sleeve. The label is indeed known for having used and abused revolutionary rhetoric (let us remember, after all, that Cuba is only a stone's throw away and that Michael Manley of the PNP was in power in Jamaica): MPLA, Angola and Leftist are a few of the classic riddims concocted by the house band, the Revolutionaries, in fact a combo of the island's best musicians (notably Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare, Ossie Hibbert, Ansel Collins, "Dougie" Bryan and Vin Gordon). But this political stance was above all intended to set it apart from its main competitor, the more conservative Joe Gibbs, who incidentally employed most of the Revolutionaries' musicians in a studio band he christened The Professionnals. All of which is to say that at the time, in the quality of the musicians and of the mixing as much as in this leftist identity, the studio had a distinctive touch.
Subtitled "Drum sound", this dub compilation put together by the English outfit Pressure Sounds intends to let us appreciate in detail the playing of Sly Dunbar, the chief architect of the Channel One sound. The approach is particularly noticeable on dubs that are almost strictly "drum & bass", such as this stripped-down Jah creation, the magnificent A who sey taken from Ernest Wilson's I know myself, the riddim Swell headed or Ride on marcus. But on most of the versions, the reggae lover will find himself on familiar ground and can therefore afford to prick up his ears: the expected tribute to the Mighty Diamonds with the dubs of Back weh a mafia, Them Never Love Poor Marcus or I need a roof (or rather Plantation heights, Dillinger's version), a few dubs of unmissable singles (Girl I love you by Horace Andy, Deliver me by Tony Tuff, retitled Tivoli skank, Fade away by Junior Byles, titled Rootes dub, Pride and ambition by Leroy Smart or War by the Wailing Souls.
But you will not hold it against the compiler: you stand every chance of being knocked out by the first track, Kunta Kinte, a dub of the monstrous riddim Beware of your enemies. An anthem of the selector Jah Shaka, this high-quality unreleased track had been the object of a veritable quest among collectors. It may therefore turn up more often in record bins, since Pressure Sounds has announced its release on 45 (in a limited edition!), the compilation itself also being available as a double 33 rpm LP.
