Seven years in the creating Spaceship To Mars is a collaboration between the Spiritual Godfather of Dub, lord of lords, king of kings, Lee Scratch Perry and Brilliant bass meister and producer Youth. Utilizing classic Scratch dub plates and recordings toasted over and collaborated with by Youth and a host of guests including Boy George, Carol Thompson and Don Letts. Youth's original meeting with Lee Perry took place in the heart of British Reggae culture that is the Boiler Room in Guildford in 2017.
The album opens with Butterfly Sky Ft Hollie Cook who is the first artist to toast over Lee Scratch Perry's dub plates, with Youth's added musical wizardry, Scratch toasting in his own inimitable style over the heavy beats, swooshing effects getting deep into the riddim, you lie back looking at that Butterfly flying in the Sky, horns come gently stabbing in.
Love Is War Ft Abby Addams for all the lovers of Ganja, Lee lays down his mantra for the wonders of what Ganja does for him, over sweet organ led super cool choon, Abby adds backing vocals, too get well chilled while enjoying a large doobie too.
Love Sunshine Peace ft Carol Thompson bringing some lovers Rock vibes to this sweet duet with Lee, he tells us he is the emperor of the lord, in service of Rastafari, while Carol sweetly keeps on moving towards a world full of love Sunshine peace in her very soul, this mighty tune lopes along to the imperious bassline.
The Lizard ft Boy George and Nicole's mighty trombone, this has cackling Lee accentuating Boy Georges tale of desperation and violence in the city, sounding more like Gregory Issacs than expected Boy George wonders why he had to take a bullet for your generation, back when he was 16, The Son Of Thunder looks over him.
Dr Love ft Don Letts who sounds like he is interviewing Scratch to get the super speedy rapped replies, deep wisdom and acceptance to Upset the nation, ready for the revelations, this has a sweet pop edge surrounding the mighty deep riddims.
Iron Shirt ft Zoe Devlin is a lovers dubby take on the Junior Murvin & the Upsetters classic much sampled hit, that always makes me smile and think of Glastonbury festival, this takes us way out into space, the legendary lyric line goes gospel rather than mad dancefloor, I always love getting more versions of this choon, rewind the selector! Rewind The Selector!
Spaceship To Mars ft Chris Bowsher has some classic Cow Thief Skank style Lee growls, they expand on the serious dub sounds of Space dub, a concept Lee always returned too, this has that mad Radical dance party vibe ready for space flight to deal with all the bumba claats.
Bulldozer Dub Ft Amber has deep speaker wobbling bass sparseness for Lee to impart deep belief in trees and other conscious matters, the soulful backing vocals accentuate the choon in deeper ways than the keyboard interjections.
Disc one closes with In The Sunshine ft Blue Pearl with swirling sounds we can all celebrate being In The Sunshine on a tune that I'd have loved to hear played by Niney The Observer at carnival, it would get the vibe lifting with the spaced effects helping us to all sing along and groove with them.
The Dub disc opens with Butterfly Sky (Dub Mix) a darker sparser deeper chalice inflected version, so Makka Splaff an kick back with that bassline going to the heart of The Mighty Upsetter.
Love Is War (Dub Mix) brings the drums forward, allowing focus on the organ sound with minimal vocal pearls, the guitar feels more in your face than on the original version.
Love Sunshine Peace (Dub Mix) has a classic Lee Perry spoken word intro and keeps Carol Thompsons backing vocals on a silky smooth, yet super heavyweight dub allowing that organ to shine.
The Lizard (Dub Mix) is searching high and low for the way to get to the 51st State, this mix is in the spirit of the Tapper Zukie dubbing with horns album, mighty trombone magic.
Dr Love Revelation Dub takes us deep into Serious Son Of Thunder Revelations, it needs to be heard on a huge system so it can really wobble your belly, cos here I come to upset the nation Choon!!
Iron Shirt (Dub Mix) has an Augustus Pablo vibe, Zoe Devlin's vocals are manipulated and dubbed out to the max.
Spaceship To Mars (Dub Mix) has maximum woozy riddim and vocals, with plenty of wow and flutter, while the organist reworks an old Jimmy Smith organ line too brilliant effect.
Bulldozer (Dubsetter Mix) is all sorts of ambient dub interpretations, cars speed by, ten pin bowls get knocked down, Upsetter in da house, how deep is the bass line, harmonize with Amber, rewind the tape, phase the sounds, magnificent dub dance sensation with a vocal outro.
Lessons In Dub is just that, with spoken word explanations from a variety of sampled teachers and Lee on what is dub and how to make it, getting to the core of what a dubplate is and how it would be used, how you add effects, Lee's words are more tangential inspirations, making sure you drop the right things out at the wrong time, mash up de riddim and explode the vocals.
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