Label: Dubhead Format: CD,LP
Counscious Centry man and all-round dub star Dougie Wardrop‘s third outing with P Davey in the Bush Chemists‘ trilogy of digital roots manoeuvrings continues to prove that this particular branch of reggae is as much a London thing as Jamaican. From the fields and tents of sunny sound-systems on Hackney Marshes to the dub clubs of Brixton, Tufnell Park and Finsbury Park, the Stamford Hill posse have drummed up the electronic percussion and spread the bass vibrations across the “Toker’s Trilogy” of Light Up Your Spliff, Light Up Your Chalice and now Dub Fire Blazing.
The first of these albums had one of the wacky-bacciest opening lines ever in the shape of “Light up your spliff/light up your chalice/c’mon everyone to Buckingham Palace”, a tune which surely should be the anthem of Smokey Bears and Monarchy-Mooners everywhere. Dub Fire Blazing keeps the militant spirit going in those signature bass accompaniments to complex drum programmes which tick and trickle like clockwork working overtime, so it’s a shame to report that some of the guest vocals let things down a little thanks to some occasionally off-key chanting on the otherwise fast-steppingly chunky “King David’s House”. Still, this is only a small glitch, and most of the vocal contributions from Culture Freeman, Ras Imru et al bring more than adequate extra dimension to the Bush Chemists sound. Instrumentals like “Bass Gone Crazy” and “Eastern Style” do much as their titles describe under a wash of echo without stretching the format too far, but done to just the right degree of dubwise wooziness and dynamic precision.
The praise of the herb is self-evident, and titles like “Marijuana Defenders, “Long Time I No Smoke” or “Erb Warrior” are as puffed-up with righteous bass-heavy toke-liberation theology as is to be expected. There is a broad appeal to many of the tracks on Dub Fire Blazing, and the chances of hearing the sound of this album slap-back echoes across the open spaces of free festivals and carnivals are about as high as most of the potential audience. After a while, the persistent thump of the drums, the psychedelic rattle of Jonah Dan‘s bongos and the tweet of the synths and melodica floating over that ever-creeping bass punch take over completely, rumbling the viscera into pleasantly-chilled states where the mechanistic and the mellow meet.
-Antron S. Meister-
