MOG

...You probably know what dub music is even if you dont think you do...essentially it's just instrumental reggae (or a "version as they say down in Jah-mek-ya) with effects (echo; reverb; found sounds) thrown in to heighten the hypnotic keyboard bubbling and guitar skanks...at any rate, there's a lot of good albums out there to check-- like Mikey Dread's African Anthem and Black Uhuru's Love Dub(which both may be out of print, sadly) but there's-- always got to be a proverbial best of the best and in my book, to be succinct, that would be the dub maestro Augustus Pablo sin duda ,kid. In the summer of '89 I bought a grip of reggae to take with me to university and among those LP's was (what I'd eventually learn) Pablo's dub template set East of the River Nile ...Hands down, this is the phattest dub plate ever produced on the yard (Jamaica) or anywhere else. "Chant to King Selassie I" which opens the tune always puts me in an irie mood no matter the situation and AP's melodica flourishes will take you straight to the shores of the Cane River with the Blue Mountains at your back, it's just that tight...later, there's the rolling drum intro on "Upfull Living" which always evokes white-eyed-roll-back neck action in me everytime I hear it and when Pablo breaks it down during the outro and that bass line kicks in with the Hammond B-3 vamps you'll know exactly what I'm talking about-- you'll actually get the York Peppermint Patty sensation of inhaling salubrious Caribbean air while watching the dolphins play in a lagoon as a cocktail with a itty-itty umbrella rests on the tiny wooden table beside your hammock; "Africa (1983)" which is the dub of a Hugh Mundell LP called Africa Must Be Free (Swaby produced and instrumentalized on that classic reggae LP a-- cop it if you can, you won't regret it.) ;on the title track, another sweet as jam, Swaby solos on melodica throughout but the time signature is a little jazzier and the effects really shine. Dude was waaay ahead of the digital age as all of it was cut on analog but the LP's still as fresh now as when I heard it the first time when I was 17; this is that next shite that you can only find at the very soul of sound, son. Oh, and I can't forget to point out the penultimate cut "Islington Rock" is just fuggin' kinky-stylee...smoke 'em if you got 'em, yo: Like Satchmo said, if you have to ask me, I can't tells ya...but I can tell you this: Augustus Pablo's East of the River Nile is quite possibly the perfect dub reggae LP and it (too) should be in everyone's music collection...its one of the few albums that's perfect for a coast-to-coast listen because every slice on it just FITS, making this THE desert island dub LP...