Huge new as Sonar Kollektiv announces their new partnership with Dub legend Jah Wabble. Before the release of his new studio album later this year we get our first taste on the Watch How You Walk 12'.
With the current release here at hand Sonar Kollektiv can be extremely delighted to introduce a new artist with a reputation that precedes him. This time though we deal with anything but a newcomer. The living legend, that Jah Wobble is, would actually need no further introduction. As a founding member of Public Image Limited (PiL), his collaborations with Holger Czukay, Brian Eno, Francois Kevorkian, Björk, Peter Gabriel, Sinead O'Connor and Bill Laswell (just to name a few of the names he has worked with during his more than 30 years spanning career) and thanks to this experimental journeys in all directions dub and world music can lead to, the London born and raised John Wardle (his real name) has become one of the most important and most influential musicians/producers of the 20th and 21st century. There's probably no other bass player, who literally constantly reinvents himself and thereby the genre of Dub as recklessly and unabashedly as Wobble. Over the last seventeen years he chiefly released on his own label 30 Hertz Records. Therefore it's an even bigger honor for Sonar Kollektiv to have him putting out his latest work on their imprint.
As a pre-12inch of the upcoming album 'Inspiration' we get the track 'Watch How You Walk' in three remixes that couldn't be more diverse. The names that Wobble and Sonar Kollektiv could assign to turn in their contributions show in an impressive way in which league he plays. For instance let's take Dennis Bovell. He is the undisputed maestro of UK reggae - having worked as a musician, producer, writer, and arranger on countless reggae, punk, pop and rock albums. His dub albums were an inspiration to the ikes of Adrian Sherwood and Mad Professor, as well as being the pioneer of Lover's Rock. His remix of 'Watch How You Walk' catches that specific UK sound system vibe perfectly and leaves enough room for PJ Higgins' voice to shine to the fullest. For extra rubba dub effect he even adds some of his own ad-libs. Next up is Anthony Parchment, aka DJ Kutz. A younger producer who draws from bass, and post-dubstep as well as basic electronic music forms such as house and techno. He sports a more dapper rework interpreting Jah Wobble's dub roots to work for the current flavour of the floors around the world. Kutz does this masterfully with enough natty twists to maintain his remix timeless like the original. Future bass music. Not many artists have the privilege to even think about asking the godfather of dub, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, to have a go at their material. Maybe some new acts should have the guts to do so though, since the former Upsetter, now at the age of 77, still manages to deliver some pure magic and an updated 2014-version of what he used to cook up in his infamous Black Ark studios in Kingston more than forty years ago. Be prepared of a sound design that is as futuristic as it can get and some added vamp rhymes by the master himself. Even without this remix this release would be a highlight of 2014. But with Lee Perry's contribution it's by all means one of the essential 12inch of the year. Let's bag it in!
