Late Night Tales Presents Version Excursion Selected by Don Letts

The filmmaker and broadcaster Don Letts first found fame as the ‘Rebel Dread’ DJ who introduced punks to reggae at The Roxy. Renowned for eclectic taste and musical openness, Letts here selects 21 dub cover tunes spanning different genres and eras, seamlessly mixed without gaps.

The high points are many, with several of the UK’s best dub masters at the mixing desk, including Adrian Sherwood, Dennis Bovell and Mad Professor, their work rubbing shoulders with classic Jamaican dubs, such as a bass-heavy Tamlins take on Randy Newman’s ‘Baltimore’. Prince Fatty’s dub rendition of Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’, featuring the voice of Shenice McMenamin, is a brilliant contemporary reworking, and there are other upfront nuggets from Switzerland’s OBF, Japan’s Yasushi Ide and Texas’ Khruangbin. About half the tracks are exclusive mixes made specially for the compilation, the more outstanding including Bovell’s fractured take of Matumbi’s ‘Reggae Stuff’ (based on Kool & the Gang’s ‘Funky Stuff’), Professor’s reconstruction of John Holt’s sultry take on Lou Rawls’ ‘You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine,’ and an unknown mix of Cornel Campbell’s ‘Time for Peace,’ based on Marvin Gaye’s ‘Inner City Blues’.