April
23rd marks the 45th anniversary of the release of Burning Spear's
fourth album, Garvey's Ghost, issued on this day in 1976. It is a "dub"
remix collection of the songs originally released on the band's third
album, Marcus Garvey. The album was fashioned by Island Record
engineers, John Burns and Dick Cuthell, in their Hammersmith studio and,
as such, is often disparaged for not involving the participation of the
group members themselves, stamping it with the reputation as a callous
cash-grab. Yet it remains one of my all-time favorite dub albums!
I
didn't discover this album until sometime in 1981, approximately. It
was my entry into the world of dub music. I'd developed an interest in
exploring the genre after becoming beguiled by the sub-bass seduction of
PiL's Metal Box/Second Edition a year before. I had read in the music
press how much of that album's sound had been inspired by dub music, so I
wanted to dive in for some more bass goodness. However, isolated as I
was in the north-western miasma of Thunder Bay, ON, the selection of
reggae music in the shops was meager to say the least. You might find a
thin slip of a handful of records in any given shop at the time. Most
were mainstays like Bob Marley or Peter Tosh. Finding anything that was
an actual dub mix was next to impossible. Yet one day I chanced upon
this album with the term "dub" emblazoned on its cover and I was on that
shit like a thirsty man in a desert.
Though it may have lacked
the creative inspiration of the more reputable dub albums of the era,
the sheer perfection of the source material meant that it was bound to
be a solid listen, no matter how rote the production efforts might be.
The DNA of this music can't be disrupted and I still go back to this
album regularly when I need a fix. It has a curious sense of space and
absence that may even be enhanced by the half-assedness of the
producers. I don't know if that makes any sense, but I just know
there's a magic in these grooves that I can't deny.
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