It seems that Germany, despite losing last week's European Football Championship final to Spain, isn't quite ready to admit defeat. In response to the previous CTW recommendation, the German coach has thrown on an extraordinarily last-minute substitution straight from the heart of Berlin:
Dubplates From The Madhouse by Dub One! (The exclamation mark comes as part of the package. It helps if you say it as. If! YouwereCaptain...KIRK!)
The first sound on this five-track EP is a cool double bass, then a cooler dusty beat. Hmm, so Jack's Pot (Radio Edit) is trip-hop, surely? But no, here's a pulsing organ and swelling horns. Sit back and enjoy dub delirium. Rather appropriate for something from a madhouse.
A minute in to Odd Man's Planet Dub and what was an exemplary dub track gets a bespoke, crackly trip-hop drum beat that elicits a Neanderthal grunt of satisfaction from CTW. Play this (not the grunt) to your friends and watch their jaws drop when you tell them that you got it for free without resorting to a balaclava and sawn-off shotgun. Your friends may scoff at your claim, but you will remain calm and untroubled because your inner soundtrack is set to "trip-hop", permitting your yin and yang to enact a slow-motion duel between sitar and guitar. Satisfaction ensues. You've just been levitated by the Sitar Sensi (2007 Jah Crazy Edit).
Next is Wise Man's Dub, in which the narrator tries to find the path of enlightenment by bothering old age pensioners for the answer to life, the universe, etc. He gets nowhere until he talks to a nubile young lady. That's wisdom. And it's extremely wise of Dub One! to produce such a blend of trip-hop, light dub and rock guitar, not to mention a dusting of sitar.
We end the EP surrounded in a cloud of smoke with Dub One!'s whimsically titled "Sedative Gunjah Remix" of Knock Me Down by ETF. There's sax, flutes, organ, a soaring rock guitar solo, and a lithe young woman singing along - all it needs is a reverberating snare drum and you could file this remix in the dictionary under "Dub". And, would you credit it, the snare drum's there too. Somebody give the Oxford University Press a call.
I think this glimpse inside an asylum is the best thing that Dub One! has dub done. Each track is a head-nodding treat, and there's a professional sheen to the sound. If you want more of his stuff, you'll find it at ever-reliable Ideology, where he joins up to good effect on various releases with Authist, his usual partner in crime.
Dub One! - Dubplates From The Madhouse (EP) (link to zipped album and individual mp3s & oggs)
Ideology netlabel
