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album with a title like this one, containing
heavy duty riddims and mixes from such as
Ernest Hoo-Kim and Errol T is a must for
every lover of Dubwise Style as I would say.
But does the title cover the contents? I
think so! That is why this album gets the
highest possible rating of three full stars.
During his long time carriere, Gregory
has put out some massive Roots and DUB
tunes. Although Gregory Isaacs is mostly
known for his smooth Lovers' Rock tunes,
there is another side of the Cool Ruler and
that side is prominently featured on this
album. This side makes him interesting for
the hard core Dub heads who you can't get
into enjoying Lovers' Rock.
For those who are familiar with Gregory
Isaac's great Dub album "Slum
Dub": Dub A De Number One definitely
contains the same atmosphere. The same thing
you'll also find on the Blood and Fire Inner
Circle release Heavyweight Dub. The music
rocks hard and the echo's go straight to
your head. Everything in in the
"orthodox" Roots tradition.
But Dub Da Number One goes further than
the two albums mentioned above. It contains
a set of dubs "From the Archives"
so to speak, mostly stuff which was
previously unreleased (and I wonder why),
but you'll also find dubs from a recent
release, "I found Love". This
album was produced together with the famous
Reggae guitarist Ernest Ranglin. Now, the
great thing with this all is, that you don't
have to expect some digital cross-over
music, or ragga when you know that there's
recent music on the disc too.
Riddim after riddim, some pretty well
known, mix after mix, the album remains
interesting. Every now and then I just got
to get up from my chair, stop writing and
start skanking. Time to disturb the
neighborhood and remind them, that Dub is
The Number One. Fortunately, they agree!
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