Various – Jah Children Invasion Vol. 6: Digital Dawn

$55.00 Inc GST

1 in stock

SKU: 20243 Category: Tags: ,

Description

6th in the Jah Children Invasion series is a straight up winner. It draws for that phase shift in reggae from drums + vocals to a formulation of keyboards, drum machines and singers, stemming from Prince Jammy’s ground zero ‘Sleng Teng’ rhythm that can be heard to parallel the ‘80s shift to synth-pop, laying the ground for ragga and reggaeton and catalysing styles of UK hardcore/jungle/house and techno in the process. They all come from the DATs and memory banks of Lloyd “Bullwackie” Barnes’ legendary label Wackies, whose close relationship with Berlin’s Hardwax crew and HJ’s Mark Ainley has been an education over the years, often intersecting the catalogue of Basic Channel and Rhythm & Sound and its don, Mark Ernestus.

 

Typical of Wackies, the style here is perhaps more mellifluous, but still dead heavyweight. Horace Andy supplies two gems in the bubbling ‘Drop Off’ and its ‘Dub Out a Sound’ version, rife with computerised marimba, and we’re really feeling the syrupy sweetness of Wayne Chin’s ‘Won’t Do For Love’. A label staple, Milton Henry, marks up a delicious sort of slow jam Lovers sound on ‘Make It Right’, and the harmonised, reedy FM synth sounds on ‘Streets of Africa’, Chris Wayne’s cry against Apartheid, are choice. Keyboard master Jackie Mittoo also turns out gold on the effortless, if baleful, dancehall buoyancy of ‘Sorrowful’, and Chosen Brothers mark the time lag from roots reggae into the digital era on ‘Majority Rule’.