Rhythm Shower

AMG Review of Rhythm Shower

Rick Anderson
All Music Guide

Rhythm Shower is one of producer Lee "Scratch" Perry's more obscure efforts; it was originally released in a limited pressing in Jamaica and in an even more limited edition in England, and was never reissued after those pressings sold out. In the mid-'80s, it was made available (with Africa's Blood and Double Seven) as one of three LPs in the Upsetter Box, which was itself reissued several years later on CD as the Upsetter Compact Set. Despite its obscurity, Rhythm Shower is a pivotal album in Perry's career as a producer and bandleader; it finds him beginning to experiment with dub end developing the distinctive studio sound that would come to full maturation in subsequent years. Whereas earlier albums had offered plenty of instrumental versions, on Rhythm Shower Perry really starts making use of the studio tricks that characterized what was then the emerging art form of dub -- dropping voices in and out of the mix (as on " Uncle Charlie" and a dub cut of the George Faith classic "To Be a Lover") and doing the same with individual instruments (as he does with Augustus Pablo's melodica on "Kuchy Skank") to create a trippy, hypnotic effect. There are a couple of fine DJ turns from the great Dillinger, but the main attraction is the mighty Upsetters themselves, whose rock-solid rhythms give Perry all the room he needs to maneuver. This is classic Scratch, an album that should have been reissued on its own years ago.