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Well, I still don't know anything like as much about this stuff as I'd like to (a situation I'm fully intending to change once my bank balance gets a regular input of disposable cash), but I've not heard anything that pushes the envelope quite as much - while still remaining entertaining and listenable - as that Far-I album. There seems to be a tendency amongst a lot of dub producers to think that all they need to do is turn up the bass, stick mental amounts of echo on all the vocals and whack some space beeps in here and there, which is enjoyable initially, but makes for very dull listening after the first couple of tracks. See: Scientist, whose habit of giving the same treatment to every track gets yawnsome quickly.
Dub Encounter 3's like the polar opposite of that, with every track taking you by surprise and offering up something new.
The Trojan comps are a sort of starting point. Go from them to Prince Jammy (Kamikaze Dub's great), King Tubby (the Foundation of Dub comp, if it's still available) and Perry's production work on other people's tracks, through Perry's own compositions and Pablo's work, then through Mad Professor (Who Knows the Secret of Master Tape) and end up at Far-I. That said, the other tracks of his that I've heard are all relatively straight-edge compared to those on that album.
Somebody (Locust?) pointed me towards Linton Kwesi Johnson in an old, long-lost thread on this subject, and I'll be eternally grateful. Heavily political lyrics about life in race riot Britain, which are often set to a ska background, but have instrumental dub versions which are excellent in their own right. The Island collection, Independant Intavenshan, follows a similar sort of layout to a lot of the Perry comps - original, version, original, version, and so on. |
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