Dub in the Roots Tradition : Scientist

This is a Greatest Hits compilation of the master-skilled Scientist ; presented to us by Blood & Fire back in 1996.  The Blood & Fire label did a ton of reissue work in the 90's and it's nice to see that Scientist made their list of musicians, engineers, and vocal artists to honor with a high quality production.  15 tracks of choice cuts on this disc and all straight up roots dub.  A lot of familiar rhythms on this one but Scientist has a way of twisting the sounds in ways the other engineers seem to overlook sometimes.  The tunes range from about 1976 - 1979, this is said to be the beginning stages of the Scientist's dub journey.  My favorites on this one are #1 (King Tubby's Awnser), #2 (Dub Bible), #5 (Don't Rush the Dub), and #11 (Sunshine Version).  Like most Blood & Fire reissue/compilation products, the booklet and liner notes provide a great insight in to the time lines of Scientist's accomplishments and associations with his contemporaries.  scientist is sometimes known as the second great student of King Tubby's behind Jammy.  He's worked all over the world with the finest reggae musicians such as Roots Radics and I was able to witness his skills live at the now defunct Malibu Inn (http://hbreggaeblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/don-carlos-malibu-inn.html).  This is a nice disc to have in the dub section of your collection.  It would fit rite in with some of your favorite Tubby's (King Tubby's Hidden Treasure) (Dub Like Dirt) and maybe a quality Jammy's disc (King Jammy Presents Barry Brown) to round out your seventies roots dub.

The Great Pablo : Augustus Pablo

This CD was released by "Music Club" under license from Trojan Recording in 2000. There are 15 tracks on my copy of this Greatest Hits type of CD. The recording material ranges from 1971 to 1975 ; said to be the heart of Pablo's works. The disc comes with a very short one page synopsis of Pablo's career. I wouldn't say the liner notes provided any new insight in to Pablo that I haven't found elsewhere already. My favorites on this one are : #1 ( East of the River Nile ), #2 ( River Nile Version ), #6 (The Great Pablo ), and #12 (House Raid ). This disc isn't totally instrumental, there's vocals and dj version on two or three of the tracks. Other classic songs Pablo dubbed out on this one like, #13 ( Curly Locks ), #14 ( Road Block ), and #12 ( House Raid ) which is a killer dub version of the classic "Burial" and the rest are excellent takes on these classic tracks. That's one of the things that makes this disc a nice addition to your collection - it fills a few of the gaps in the story of Augustus Pablo. Kind of a supplemental disc to the more classic Original Rockers : Augustus Pablo & Ital Dub : Augustus Pablo . I've done blogs on several other albums that include Pablo as musician, producer, and inspiration so check those out if you're looking for more quality discs.