The Early Years Of Joe Gibbs 1967-73 Vol.2

Cuba: Music and Revolution: Culture Clash in Havana: Experiments in Latin Music 1975-85 Vol. 2 is the new album compiled by Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker (Soul Jazz Records) that takes off in exactly the same vein as the much-acclaimed Vol. 1 - exploring the many styles that came out of Cuba in the 1970s as Latin and Salsa mixed with heavy doses of Jazz, Funk, and Disco to create some of the most dancefloor-friendly music every made!

The album comes as a heavyweight 3xLP and deluxe 2xCD set, complete with extensive sleeve notes, and is jam-packed with heavy bass lines, synth and Wah-Wah guitar funk combined with the heavyweight percussion, powerful brass lines and the all-encompassing Latin rhythms of Cuban music known throughout the world.

Much of the music on this album is featured in the deluxe large format book ‘Cuba: Music and Revolution: Original Cover Art of Cuban Music: Record Sleeve Designs of Revolutionary Cuba 1959-90’, released by Soul Jazz Books and also compiled by Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker (Soul Jazz Records), featuring the music and record designs of Cuba, made in the 30-year period following the Cuban Revolution.

The music on this new album features a host of rarities from legendary Cuban artists such as Los Van Van, alongside Grupo De Experimentación, Farah Maria, Ricardo Eddy Martinez, Juan Pablo Torres, Grupo Sintesis and Orquesta Riverside, most of whose names remain largely unknown outside of Cuba but have long been favourite club tracks and secret-weapons in Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker's record boxes!

The music on this album reflects the most cutting-edge of Cuban groups that were recording in Cuba in the 1970s and 1980s – all searching for a new Cuban identity and new musical forms reflecting both the Afro-Cuban cultural heritage of a nation that gave birth to Latin music - and its new position as a socialist state. Most of the music featured on this album have never been heard outside of Cuba.

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Both Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker have been involved in Cuban music for more than two decades – Gilles Peterson with his many Havana Cultura projects for his Brownswood label and Stuart Baker with a number of Soul Jazz Records albums recorded in Cuba. This Soul Jazz Records album is released in conjunction with Egrem, the Cuban state record company, and has been put together after the many crate-digging trips that both compilers have made on the streets of Havana and beyond in Cuba stretching over a 20-year period, searching out rare and elusive original Cuban vinyl records.

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REVIEWS of CUBA: Music and Revolution vol. 1:

"We already have a strong contender for 'compilation of the year'. Put together by devout crate-diggers and Cuban music enthusiasts Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker (founder of Soul Jazz Records)" JUNO

"It's abundantly clear that these compilers are at the very top of their game. Everything here was previously unheard outside of Cuba, making this a feast for the curious" Vinyl District

"Priceless comp that goes far beyond Buena Vista!" UNCUT

Classic Italo/dream house music from the glory days of the early 90s! Features gems from the likes of Keytronics, The Montego Bay Experience, High Tide and The True Underground Sound Of Rome!

Music from the motion picture double-feature 'Grindhouse'! Tarantino's 'Death Proof' features gems from the 60s and 70s by the likes of Jack Nitzsche, Pino Donaggio, Ennio Morricone, Willy DeVille and more!

Nyege Nyege Tapes foray into the world of Tanzanian Singeli, the breakneck dance strain that's quickly moved from Dar es Salaam throughout the world. Following 'Sounds of Sisso', a compilation that focused mostly on the Tanzanian capital's Sisso Studios, this set highlights recordings from Duke's Pamoja Records. And while its predecessor brought attention to the producers, 'Sounds of Pamoja' showcases the wide variety of MC talent under the Pamoja Records umbrella, with production mostly handled by Duke.

Z Records’ 'Under The Influence' series gives a musical platform to record collectors that may be unknown to the general public but are hardcore enthusiasts who have built some of the best collections of soul, funk and disco; this time selected by a London-based DJ, dancer and record collector, Alena Arpels.

Originally pressed on vinyl in very small quantities, these 19 records were issued between 1970 to 1983. Many of the tracks included in this compilation were never commercially released, but given away by the artists to family and friends instead. Killer selection!

A CLASSIC set of productions and remixes from the US house/garage legend, Todd Edwards, who was a huge and important influence in the genesis of UKG! Features classic remixes for the likes of St Germain, Indo, Robin S., MJ Cole plus his own classic productions such as 'Saved My Life', 'Winter Behavior' and loads more!

N.B. Vinyl tracklisting:

A1. St Germain - Alabama Blues (Todd Edwards Dub Mix) A2. Indo - R U Sleeping (Todd Edwards Mix) B1. Sound Of One - As I Am (Todd Edwards Mix / Version) B2. Kim English – Tomorrow (Todd Edwards Dub)

C1. Daft Punk - Face To Face C2. Todd Edwards – Shut The Door D1. Todd Edwards – Push The Love D2. Todd Edwards – The Dream

Out-of print since its initial release over 8 years ago and not reissued and it features a monster 2 and a half hours of music!

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Very Limited Edition Super Deluxe Heavyweight Box Edition (includes 4 LP + Insert + 2 Art prints + individual inners + download) + excellent extensive sleevenotes (by David Stubbs, writer for Wire/Guardian and author of the definitive ‘Krautrock’ book) + lots of exclusive photos. This is a one-off pressing of 500 in UK/1,500 copies worldwide.

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Includes seminal German groups: Can, Faust, Neu, Amon Duul II as well as a host of lesser known groups and artists such as Agitation Free, Broselmachine, Niagara and many more! And as well as the original pioneers, Deutsche Electronische Musik 2 also features many of the second wave of German electronic artists and groups from the late 70s and early 80s (DAF, Asmus Tietchens, Rolf Trostel) who successfully connected new wave, minimal synth and a European post-punk avant-gardism with the earlier more established Krautrock pioneers who began at the start of the 70s.

The first seeds of German rock and experimental electronic music were planted in 1968, as students and workers in Paris, Prague, Mexico and throughout the world demonstrated against mainstream society, the war in Vietnam, imperialism and bourgeois values. The birth of a counter-culture, drug experimentation and social change expanded musical worlds. Germany experienced its own cultural revolution fuelled by these worldwide student and worker revolts and by a generation’s desire to rid itself of the guilt of war.

Many German youth turning their back on mainstream society. From the opening of the first collective/cooperative in 1967, Commune 1, in Berlin, to the formation of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group and the bombings, kidnappings and killings of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (RAF), young Germans sought out new values and a lifestyle outside of ‘the system’. These cooperative and communal experiences led to a number of new radical German bands including Amon Duul, Faust and Can.

Many artists and musicians believed a complete rejection of everything musically that had gone before was also necessary in order to build a new identity for German culture. At this time German music meant ‘schlager’ music – insipid pop music that hardly confronted the country’s recent historical events.

Holger Czukay and Irmin Scmidt of Can studied music under the radical avant-garde composer Karheinz Stockhausen and Conrad Schnitzler studied art under the conceptual artist Joseph Beuys. German rock groups were as interested in musique concrète and serial compostion as they were in the psychedelia of Pink Floyd or the rock, soul and jazz music played by resident American forces.

From this beginning German rock music began an evolutionary journey of experimentation. Electronic music became a pathway to notions of space and the cosmos. Conversely, the emergence of communal living led to a number of musicians setting up live/work spaces in rural areas and developing a ‘pastoral’ outlook, with musical ideas engaged closely with nature.

German electronic music, kosmische music, cosmic rock, space music. The objectives were to create new music, ‘free’ from the past. A music that gave seed out of the cultural ‘nothingness’ that young Germans felt as a consequence of Germany’s role in the Second World War. A generation who grew up stifled by the recent history of Nazi atrocities, the guilt of their parents’ generation and their disillusionment at the reintegration of old Nazis into mainstream society.

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Deutsche Elektronische Musik:

"A near-definitive guide to some of the world's most extraordinary music." ***** The Guardian

Second part of MOV's Trojan compilation series, which celebrates the best works from the legendary reggae label Trojan Records. It was compiled by Laurence Cane-Honeysett, who also wrote the linernotes. Some of Trojan’s finest are featured on this compilation; as there are The Gladiators, The Melodians, The Gladiators, Ken Boothe a.o. 750 individually numbered copies on orange vinyl. The package also includes an exclusive Trojan / Music On Vinyl coaster.

Gone back from 2021-06-18 to 27/08/2021

On Vinyl’s Trojan compilation series, which celebrates the best works from the legendary reggae label Trojan Records. It was compiled by Laurence Cane-Honeysett, who also wrote the linernotes. Some of the artists featured on this compilation include Stranger Cole, The Pioneers and Alton Ellis. 750 individually numbered copies on orange vinyl. The package also includes exclusive Trojan Records and Music On Vinyl coaster!

Echoing the spirit of the legendary samplers found on Les Disques Du Crépuscule or Made To Measure, this hybrid journal collates unusual pieces of music - rare and undiscovered pearls from the experimental underground of the early 1980s through to contemporary unreleased recordings It all helps to pinpoint Tolouse Low Trax as artist and curator in the grander scheme of things, whilst evoking the spirit of countless nights at Düsseldorf's Salon des Amateurs.

**ESSENTIAL REPRESS!**

Something to warm your spirit and purify your soul via Z Records - David Hill returns with another brilliant compilation of soul gospel! 60's, 70's and 80's, sweet-soul crossovers, and funk-flavoured gospel, with much of the production rooted in disco and boogie. Clark Sisters, Ricky Womack, Shirley Caesar and more. Complete with track by track liner notes!

Soul Jazz Records’ new Studio One collection ‘Fire Over Babylon: Dread, Peace and Conscious Sounds at Studio One’ features a stellar selection of 70s roots music – classic and rare tracks recorded at Clement Dodd’s musical empire at 13 Brentford Road in the 1970s.

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Rastafarian-inspired Roots music was an ever-important aspect of Studio One’s output from the start of the 1970s onwards and this album features many of the ground-breaking groups and artists that established the sound of Jamaica during this decade and beyond.

Featured here are seminal artists such as Freddie McGregor, The Wailing Souls, The Gladiators, Horace Andy, Devon Russell, Cedric Brooks, Count Ossie, Judah Eskender Tafari alongside a host of lesser-known rare cuts made at Studio One from artists such as The Prospectors, Viceroys and Pablove Black.

Studio One and founder Clement Dodd’s connection with Rastafarianism dates back to the early 1960s, with Dodd accompanying members of the Skatalites up to the hills of Kingston to listen to the music of the Rastafarianism Count Ossie and his drummers. The album sleevenotes discuss how Clement Dodd’s musical links, as well as his role in heading the most important record label in Reggae, are in many ways linked to the beliefs of Rastafarianism.

This album is released as a heavyweight black vinyl double-album with gatefold sleeve, full notes and download code, deluxe CD with full booklet and slipcase and digital album.

The Lost Maestros Collection is a collaboration between Deviation Records and the independent Malian label Mieruba, which has been working since 2010 to ensure that this golden age of Mande music does not fall into obscurity.

'The Lost Maestros Collection' focuses on musical riches of Mali, and more particularly the music of the Mandé region, cradle of the great griot families,. Highly recommended!

**Featuring amazing music from British jazz legends such as Don Rendell, Michael Garrick, Neil Ardley, Ian Carr, Dick Morrissey, Harry Beckett and more!**

A deep dive into the one of most collectable jazz catalogues in the world, a selection of some of the rarest and most sought-after recordings from the 60s and 70s, a time when British jazz began to find its own identity. Drawn from the iconic labels of Decca, Deram, Argo, EMI Columbia/Lansdowne Series, Fontana, Mercury and Philips.

Tramp Records' top 'Can You Feel It?' series continues with some rare and obscure modern soul, disco and boogie originating from countries as diverse as Barbados, Guyana, Germany, and the US.

Cold Wave #2

Ltd. Edn. Dayglo sleeve + PURPLE VINYL 2xLP, + mini-fanzine/ Ltd. Edn. Dayglo sleeve + BLACK VINYL 2xLP, + mini-fanzine/ Dayglo CD + Slipcase + Booklet

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Soul Jazz Records new ‘Cold Wave’ is a new collection of current electronic artists who have all been shaped by the early European cold wave artists of the late 70s and early 80s.

This is the second release of Soul Jazz Records’ new Cold Wave overview.

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This second edition Cold Wave #2 comes in two vinyl editions – a one-off pressing purple coloured vinyl edition and a black vinyl edition. Both come as heavyweight double vinyl housed in bespoke individual inner sleeves and the limited edition first pressing of this album comes with its own free pull-out fanzine on the groups featured. The CD edition comes with artist booklet/fanzine and slipcase. All editions are printed in special dayglo colour finish.

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These first artists created new electronic musical landscapes as well as pursuing a stubborn D-I-Y aesthetic, often releasing material on cassette and pioneering use of lo-fi technology, primitive drum machines and home-recording techniques. As part of this continued evolution today many of the artists featured here also self-release their own material, run labels, publish fanzines, or are part of wider musical collectives.

Aside from the first electronic, no wave, and post-punk artists cited as influences –Suicide, Patrick Cowley, The Normal, Martin Hannett, Laurie Anderson, Public Image – this new generation of artists also show an exquisitely open source of electronic and disparate influences, everything from Underground Resistance to Purcell, from Scientist to New Beat and more besides.

Most of the featured artists are based in Europe and include Krikor from France, Beta Evers and L.F.T. from Germany, Lena Willikens, Job Siffre and De Ambassade from the Netherlands, Toulouse Low Trax from Germany, Dave I.D. and Broken English Club from the UK, and V.C.V.S from Georgia

All of the bands featured here make distinctive contemporary music out of the 80s roots of the first cold wave movement.

Some of the rarest gospel funk records from Greg Belson’s amazing collection featuring everything from the laid back breakbeat laced “I Don’t Want to Be Alone by Allen Gauff Jr to the high octane and socially-on-point take of the Gospel classic ‘This Little Light Of Mine’ by the Gospel Ambassadors to drum break funk of the Wearyland Singers ‘If You See Me Doing Wrong” to the sublime soulfulness of Zella Jackson’s “Days Are Just People.

Ltd. Edn. Dayglo sleeve + ORANGE VINYL 2xLP, + mini-fanzine/ Ltd. Edn. Dayglo sleeve + BLACK VINYL 2xLP, + mini-fanzine/ Dayglo CD + Slipcase + Booklet

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Soul Jazz Records new ‘Cold Wave’ is a new collection of current electronic artists who have all been shaped by the early European cold wave artists of the late 70s and early 80s.

This is the first release of Soul Jazz Records’ new Cold Wave overview and a second volume will be released just four weeks later.

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This first edition of Cold Wave comes in two vinyl editions – a one-off pressing orange coloured vinyl edition and a black vinyl edition. Both come as heavyweight double vinyl housed in bespoke individual inner sleeves and the limited edition first pressing of this album comes with its own free pull-out fanzine on the groups featured. The CD edition comes with artist booklet/fanzine and slipcase. All editions are printed in special dayglo colour finish.

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These first artists created new electronic musical landscapes as well as pursuing a stubborn D-I-Y aesthetic, often releasing material on cassette and pioneering use of lo-fi technology, primitive drum machines and home-recording techniques. As part of this continued evolution today many of the artists featured here also self-release their own material, run labels, publish fanzines, or are part of wider musical collectives.

Aside from the first electronic, no wave, and post-punk artists cited as influences –Suicide, Patrick Cowley, The Normal, Martin Hannett, Laurie Anderson, Public Image – this new generation of artists also show an exquisitely open source of electronic and disparate influences, everything from Underground Resistance to Purcell, from Scientist to New Beat and more besides.

Most of the featured artists are based in Europe and include Krikor, Dissemblance and VQOA from France, De Ambassade from the Netherlands, Moisture from Sweden, Kriedler from Germany, Céline Gillain and Carcass Identity from Belgium. One exception is FIT Siegel out of Detroit, connecting the electronic pathways of Europe to the Motor City.

All of the bands featured here make distinctive contemporary music out of the 80s roots of the first cold wave movement.

'Oz Echoes' peels away another layer of Australia’s ‘80s DIY hive mind. The Oz Waves successor exposes a deeper circuit of micro-run cassettes, community radio archives and irrationally abandoned studio sessions, as Steele Bonus sequences a 10-track compendium of drone pop, psycheelectronics and agitated tape cut-ups. Highly recommended!

Expanded version of the best-selling TV advertised album from 1973, comprising 55 of the biggest reggae hits of the late Sixties and early Seventies.

The double disc collection includes numerous chart-busting hits and dancefloor-fillers, performed by some of the greatest Jamaican performers of the era, including such legendary artists as Desmond Dekker, the Maytals, Dave & Ansel Collins, the Pioneers, John Holt, Greyhound and Bob & Marcia.

Guaranteed to bring a touch of warm Jamaican sunshine to even the coldest of days, “The Best Of Reggae” is sure to brighten up any occasion, 365 days of the year!

UNBELIEVABLE new compilation of deep spiritual music by John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Oliver Nelson, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp and other groundbreaking Impulse Artists.

"Orange and black. Fire and ebony. Fury and pride. Wearing its signature colors proudly and raising its exclamation point high, Impulse! Records was the go-to label for music that harnessed the searching and political stand-taking of the Sixties. Launched in 1961, Impulse grew to become an inherent part of the era’s velocity as well as its volume, pulling jazz into the age of Black Power, Afrocentricity, and Spiritual Expansion. In its balance of tradition and transition, it bridged the golden age of jazz, that brief window from the late Fifties to the Seventies when players representing every jazz era were alive and active—from Louis Armstrong to Albert Ayler, from the legends of lore to a new generation of energy players. Impulse treated all its musicians as innovators, revolutionaries even—from swing and bebop, to free and Afrofuturist. The performances on Impulse Records: Music, Message and the Moment draw their staying power from a wide embrace of styles and sounds, as well as a tight focus on a historic moment when the promise of change was in the air and the message of racial harmony was in the music. Today that music has lost none of its relevance: the promise still deferred, the message still on time."

Floating Points' Melodies International label launches its Melodies Record Club series with Four Tet selecting two big peak-time, floor-friendly, jazz dance tracks he used to spin regularly at the legendary London, UK club, Plastic People!

LAST COPIES!

This is the new 20th anniversary edition of one of Soul Jazz Records’ classic Studio One releases now available as a one-off pressing special blue vinyl very limited-edition pressing ( 2000 copies worldwide).

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Studio One Roots set the standard for Soul Jazz Records’ long-standing series of Studio One collections and features many of the classic artists from Clement 'Sir Coxsone’ Dodd’s mighty roster of reggae.

This album includes Freddie McGregor, Willie Williams, Cornell Campbell, Alton Ellis, Devon Russell alongside some of the defining crack-session men groups of Jamaican reggae history - The Sound Dimension, Brentford All-Stars, The Skatalites, New Establishment and more. As ever the album is filled with a mixture of seminal cuts and super-rarities from the vast vaults of 13 Brentford Road.

Stand-out tracks include Alton Ellis’s Blackish White, a surreal and powerful Afro-centric dream, Count Ossie Nyabinghi and Rastafarian drummers genre-defying interpretation of Booker T and The MGs ‘Meditation’, Willie Williams awe-inspiring versioning of the Skatalites' seminal Rastafari anthem Addis Ababa and many, many more.

This album has been fully digitally remastered, analog cut and packaged complete with the following: Original sleevenotes by Lloyd Bradley (author of When Reggae Was King), compiled by Mark Ainley (Honest Jons), high-quality Soul Jazz mastering, wicked images of Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari on the cover, and a rare image of Clement Dodd and musicians inside the studio at Studio One on the full colour inner sleeves.

REVIEWS:

"Having established himself as one of Jamaica's top producers the day Studio One opened its doors in the early '60s, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd was unable to maintain his status during the roots era of the subsequent decade. This can be attributed to a couple of factors. One was Dodd's apparent reluctance to record the new, overtly Rasta-inspired music. The other was an infusion of new blood into the Jamaican music business. Eager to make a name for themselves, producers like Joe Gibbs, Bunny Lee, Lee "Scratch" Perry, and Winston "Niney" Holness managed to supplant the island's "big three" (Dodd, Duke Reid, and Prince Buster) in the process, driving the music's evolution in the '70s.

There isn't a weak number across these 16 tracks, from the Gaylads' ode to "Africa" and Devon Russell's version of the heavyweight "Drum Song" rhythm, to a trio of stunning instrumentals: Jackie Mittoo and the Cyclones with nyahbinghi drummer Count Ossie on "Meditation," Lenny Hibbert's sparkling vibe work over Mittoo's "Ghetto Organ" ("More Creation"), and Sound Dimension's "Congo Rock."

The music of this compilation is of a rare, rare beauty and is essential to anyone's reggae collection." All Music

Mid-90s classics from Strictly's golden era feat. essentials from the likes of Mole People (Aramand Van Helden), DJ Sneak, Wamdue Project, Barbara Tucker and more!

It was in Benin City, in the heart of Nigeria, that a new hybrid of intoxicating highlife music known as 'Edo Funk' was born. It first emerged in the late 1970s when a group of musicians began to experiment with different ways of integrating elements from their native Edo culture and fusing them with new sound effects coming from West Africa´s night-clubs. Unlike the rather polished 1980's Nigerian disco productions coming out of the international metropolis of Lagos, Edo Funk was raw and reduced to its bare minimum.

Analog Africa focus on this style with an essential, 12 track compilation with extended notes and photos.

Long overdue collection on vinyl of The Ethiopians vocal rocksteady, early reggae output from 1968 - 1973 with killer tracks - Well Red, Everything Crash, Sounds Of Forefathers, Hong Kong Flu, The Selah and very rare tracks My Testimony & Stay Loose Mama.

Great upbeat collection of six Dennis Brown's 12" discomixes from his work with Joe Gibbs & Errol Thompson featuring classic as his version of Slave Driver, Man Next Door, Oh What A Day plus the 7" killer version of Open Up.

From the man who played trombone on the all time classic Studio 1 anthem "Real Rock" comes forward with the long over due reissue of his first solo album originally released in 1980 by Joe Gibbs. Produced by Errol Thompson and featuring eight tracks of tuff rockers rhythms, two Don Drummond covers plus a medley of "Real Rock & Fiddler Rock" Very hard to find an original now..Don't let this go..

Killer new selection of Lee Perry's Black Ark productions from the 70s featuring Augustus Pablo, Carlton Jackson, Junior Murvin, Truth, Fact & Correct (The Viceroys), The Upsetters & Raphael Green.

Second volume of Lee Perry's rare 12" mixes from The Black Ark, late 70s recordings featuring Junior Delgado, Jolly Brothers, Hugo Blackwood, Dr Alimantado, Watty Burrnett, Devon Irons and Sangie Davis. Come 12" full colour picture sleeve.

Killer new selection of Lee Perry's Black Ark productions from the 70s featuring Augustus Pablo, Carlton Jackson, Junior Murvin, Truth, Fact & Correct (The Viceroys), The Upsetters & Raphael Green.

From the man who played trombone on the all time classic Studio 1 anthem "Real Rock" comes forward with the long over due reissue of his first solo album originally released in 1980 by Joe Gibbs. Produced by Errol Thompson and featuring eight tracks of tuff rockers rhythms, two Don Drummond covers plus a medley of "Real Rock & Fiddler Rock" Very hard to find an original now..Don't let this go..

‘Bunny Lee, the Hit Maker from Jamaica.’

Soul Jazz Records presents this collection featuring the heavy 70s roots reggae of Bunny Lee – a living legend, one of the last of the great Jamaican record producers who helped shape and define reggae music in the 1970s from a small island sound into an internationally successful musical genre.

From teenage fan to young record plugger for Duke Reid, Sir Coxsone and other early pioneering Jamaican musical entrepreneurs, Lee has spent his whole professional life inside the Kingston music industry. In the 1970s he rose up to become one of the major record producers in Jamaica alongside Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, and the other ‘small axe’ producers, who broke the dominance of the ‘big tree’ producers that had ruled Jamaican music in the 1960s.

Featuring some of the heaviest Jamaican artists including Johnny Clarke, King Tubby, Dillinger, Prince Jazzbo, Tommy McCook, The legendary Aggrovators (featuring Sly and Robbie), The Mighty Diamonds and more, the album is a rollercoaster ride of rare, deep and classic 1970s roots, dub and DJ sounds.

During this era ‘flying cymbals’, crashing reverbs, dark echoing thunderclap gunshots and other ‘implements of sound’ filled his record productions as Bunny Lee explored the outer limits of dub with his friend King Tubby in the mix on wild versions that accompanied any 45. A Bunny Lee record provides a creative and mysterious hidden guide to reggae music itself, a double-sided three-minute intangible history lesson etched in wax.

Bunny Lee was one of the first Jamaican producers to travel to England in the late 1960s, at the beginning of the nascent British reggae music industry as record companies such as Trojan, Pama and others began licensing Jamaican music in the UK to supply the expanding West Indian communities living up and down England. Lee encouraged other Jamaican producers to do the same, including Lee Perry, Harry J and Niney the Observer, and also became a conduit between the British music industry and numerous younger Island-based producers - a frequent flyer reggae ambassador, a musical courier exchanging tapes for royalties.

His first recordings in the late 1960s were mainly rock steady but as the 70s approached the music soon began to mutate and slow down into ‘reggae’ as the sound became heavier, more roots-y and the sound itself began to change with the explosion of dub. Lee was at the forefront to this dramatic musical shift into roots reggae, and by this time had become a major producer, capable of working with whoever he chose as world-famous singers, DJs and musicians lined up to work with the charismatic man. Lee also employed a fluid but stable set of crack session musicians who he named The Aggrovators.

Most of the recordings featured here come from the mid-70s, a time when Bunny Lee was definitely ‘in the zone,’ releasing heavyweight singles at an almost unstoppable rate. Bunny Lee’s career stretches over five decades and he has upwards of 2,000 production credits on vinyl.

Did you work all night?

‘Yeah man, night and day. One weekend I remember, I go in a Channel One on a Friday night and I never come out ‘til Monday morning. Just send out to get food and ting.’ Bunny Lee

This album comes with extensive sleevenotes, an interview with Bunny Lee, and exclusive photography. The album is available as a massive triple LP vinyl + download code, house inner, full notes, as well as deluxe CD pack with 24-page booklet, and digital album.

Sir Collins & Big Dread roots recordings from 1976, comes in full colour picture sleeve.