Living Dub, Vol. 1

AMG Review of Living Dub, Vol. 1

Rick Anderson
All Music Guide

Like many records from the first murky decade of eggae's mature period, this one has a complicated history. It is the dubwise companion to Burning Spear's classic album of 1978, Social Living. However, Social Living was also released under the title Marcus Children. Living Dub, Vol. 1, which consisted of dub mixes by Sylvan Morris, was originally released as a vinyl record shortly after the album on which it is based, but the CD reissue released under that title in 1993 actually consists of a completely different set of dub mixes by Barry O'Hare; the original mixes were released on CD ten years later, on the revived Burning Spear label, as Original Living Dub, Vol. 1. Confused yet? You're in good company, and if you're a real dub addict, you'll hedge your bets by getting your hands on both versions. The O'Hare mixes have a digital cleanness to them that might not please purist fans of 1970s dub, with its warm, wet atmospherics and gritty analog delay sound, but O'Hare knows how to tear down and reconstruct a oots reggae edifice as well as anyone alive, and his remixes of dread classics like "Marcus Say Jah No Dead" (rendered here as "Jah Boto") and "Social Living" ("Associate") stand up well to the original mixes reissued in 2003. If you must choose between the two versions, the 2003 reissue gets the nod as a more accurate historical document, but this one is well worth owning as well.