Linval Presents Dub Landing Vols 1 & 2

While singer, songwriter and producer Linval Thompson wasn't a top-ranking reggae star, he was a well-respected man around Kingston Town. In the early 1980s, he came to London and released some of his prolific stock of productions via Greensleeves and other local companies. Current owners of the catalogue, VP Records of New York, have re-released two double-CD and vinyl sets of the Thompson-produced Dub Landing albums, both engineered and astronautically mixed by King Tubby's apprentice, Overton ‘Scientist’ Browne, at Tubby's famous studio. The 22 vocal tracks, featuring established singers such as Freddy McKay, toasters like Lee Van Cleef, and nascent dancehall stars such as Anthony ‘Gunshot’ Johnson, are deconstructed in 20 corresponding (and generally superior) dub instrumentals played by the mighty Roots Radics house band. It's instructive to hear how Scientist strips down The Viceroys' ‘Rise in the Strength of Jah’ and the inimitable Eek-a-Mouse's ‘Christmas a Come’ to their radical root in ‘Life’.

Thompson ‘wanted to prove to the world that [his] music can work.’ It did and still does. So delight in the garish Dan-Dare-meets-Funkadelic packaging of these souvenirs of an era when Britain arguably and briefly ruled the riddim waves.