JOE FERRY - CONNECTED: MOB STORIES AND REGGAE RIDDIMS

JOE FERRY - CONNECTED: MOB STORIES AND REGGAE RIDDIMS
DUBROOM REVIEW

WWW, April 2014 - He won a Grammy award multiple times, and that's just for his musical works. His teaching and writing skills have not gone unnoticed either. Talking about Joe Ferry, dr. Joe Ferry: widely acclaimed bass player and record producer as well as talented writer. But this is about the music. Music with King Tubby and Augustus Pablo to be precise.
 
We're talking about "Perfida DUB", unmistakably a Jamaican Roots Rockers tune from the seventies. A Dub carrying King Tubby's mixing skills as well as musicians playing in ways that super stars can only dream of. 555 Crown Street carrying the works of Augustus Pablo is a true classic, needs no introduction or description other than the remark it is present on this album. Which says a thing about Joe Ferry!

Of course, these two tracks are appetizers. Appetizers for what is coming. And what is coming is more fat DUB and Reggae in the Roots tradition. Solid riddims, excellent works by the musicians and the engineer, matching perfectly with the classic historic recordings on "Connected". You'll even hear resemblances of Black Uhuru recordings in the guitar play ("Unwind" by Menace).

It's not only Dub even though the album is truly all about the Dub. There's a vocal track by Uzimon and The Dons called "Don't Go Bang", a thing which makes you realize something about the title of the album. Makes you want to listen to the Dub of the track as well... There's Victor Rice again (reviewed at mp3.dubroom.org), bringing you "Bango" which is kind of a hybrid between Dub and a vocal track. There's the Big Ska Band with a Dub that could be taken off a secret Dub album by the Skatalites.

If Joe Ferry's "Connected: Mob Stories and Reggae Riddims" resembles anything of the book that this release accompanies, you might want to check that out as well. The album surely brings that upfull yet intense vibe only Reggae Dub can bring especially when it is played in, as said, the Roots Tradition.

CHECK MUSIC, GET RECORD

JOE FERRY - BEST DUB 12'' EP

JOE FERRY - BEST DUB 12'' EP
DUBROOM REVIEW

WWW, April 2014 - Bass player and producer Joe Ferry has been in the business of Reggae music for many decades. He's been there, done it. Four tracks on a limited 12" released in 2014 to give you a taste of the crucial stuff he is/was involved in!

The 12" opens up with an old skool Dub by yet another expert in the discipline: Victor Rice. Second tune has a title we will not repeat here, but needless to say that here we have another analogue Dub in true old skool style.
The B-side carries another two tunes, with some fatter bass and more intense mixing. The Channel Tubes playing a solid Roots riddim with skillful effects on the bass and organ play Jackie Mittoo style. The Dons closing off with "Satta Big Dub": four minutes of Old Skool mixing in ambient style if you know what I mean.

A true collector's item, get one while you still can!

CHECK MUSIC, GET RECORD

Radio Dubroom 2014 Chapter 1: Roots Principals

ROOTS PRINCIPALS
RADIO DUBROOM 2014 CHAPTER 1

WWW, March 2014 -  In this extra long chapter, Radio Dubroom returns with a strong selection of DUB and ROOTS. Almost two and a half hour of meditations, drum and bass lines, DUB mixing, everything selected and mixed in a non-stop experience for your listening pleasure.

The show starts off with a healthy portion of productions by the excellent Dutch producer Slimmah Sound, carrying the vocals of Kyle Sicarues and Lyrical Benjie. The latter, by the way, has some great web plates on his website of which we also play one ("Because You Don't Know").

Right after the deep DUB by Achille Studio, it's straight forward to a selection of some old and new tunes by UK based Vibronics and Russ D. Both are heavyweight producers and you can tell by merely listening to their works along with such vocalists as the sistren Dayjah and Sena, Kyle Sicarues (again) and Chezidek. Some vocals, many dubs, and you may have noticed the change into Steppers during this portion of the show.

Right after the Mad Professor, it's time for a BRAND NEW RELEASE BY STEPPAS RECORDS: ALPHA and OMEGA's THINGS GET HOTTER. A powerful tune indeed, consider that this is just one tune of the great new release. Check it out! Also check out the release by IZYAH DAVIS AND FULLNESS REVIEWED RIGHT HERE AT THE DUBROOM, of which you can hear two vocal and two DUB tracks. Stuff to consider indeed.

Some other tracks worth mentioning are Jah Rej's "Return of the Dub Man", a remake of an ancient MP3.com classic and ODG's "DUB Worries" which is a hard hitting steppers with vibes you just cannot miss.

Be sure to get this chapter of Radio Dubroom, preferably play it loud with lots of bass and neighbors that like some crucial Dub and Roots Vibrations.

PLAYLIST

01. Kyle Sicarues - Tribulation Dub (Slimmah Sound)
02. Kyle Sicarues - Tribulation (Slimmah Sound)
03. Kyle Sicarues - Guns Of War (Slimmah Sound)
04. Kyle Sicarues - Guns Of War Dub (Slimmah Sound)
05. Lyrical Benjie - Dub Soldier (Slimmah Sound)
06. Lyrical Benjie - Live Your Life (Slimmah Sound)
07. Lyrical Benjie - Because You Don't Know (Lyrical Benjie)
08. Lyrical Benjie - Children Of Israel (Slimmah Sound)
09. Lyrical Benjie - Children Of Israel Dub (Slimmah Sound)
10. Achille Studio - Evil Curse Verse II (Achille Studio)
11. Singer Blue - If A No Jah Version (Vibronics)
12. Anthony John - Love And Pray Dub (Vibronics)
13. Kyle Sicarues - Babylon Never Keep Us Down Dub (Vibronics)
14. Kyle Sicarues - Babylon Never Keep Us Down (Vibronics)
15. Sister Dayjah - Storm Clouds (Russ D)
16. Sister Sena - Rebel Woman (Russ D)
17. Sister Sena - Rebel Woman Dub (Russ D)
18. Sister Dayjah - Storm Clouds Dub (Russ D)
19. ODG - Dub Worries (ODG)
20. Chezidek - War Monger (Russ D)
21. Chezidek - War Monger Dub (Russ D)
22. Mad Professor - Kathmandu (Mad Professor)
23. Alpha And Omega - Things Get Hotter (Steppas Records)
24. Alpha And Omega - Principal Dub (Alpha And Omega)
25. Alpha And Omega - The Roots (Alpha And Omega)
26. Webcam Hi-Fi - Jahoviah Dub (Webcam HiFi)
27. Izyah Davis - Arise Dub (Fullness)
28. Izyah Davis - Arise (Fullness)
29. Michael Rose - Warrior (Twilight Circus)
30. Nucleus Roots - Jah Rule (Nucleus Roots)
31. Nucleus Roots - Jah Rule Dub (Nucleus Roots)
32. Hotdrop - Drum And Bass Version (Hotdrop)
33. Lion Dub - Strike You (Lion Dub)
34. Jah Rej - Return Of The Dub Man
35. Izyah Davis - Don't Cry Dub (Fullness)
36. Izyah Davis - Don't Cry (Fullness)
37. BR Stylers - As One (BR Stylers)
38. BR Stylers - As One Dub (BR Stylers)

CLICK FOR THE DOWNLOAD PAGE

Slowly but Steadily, the Dubroom is progressing: an update

WWW, March 27 2014 - As you may or may not have noticed, the Dubroom website is currently undergoing a massive make-over which actually was more or less planned a long time ago. Slowly but steadily, ads are being removed and a new lay-out is implemented.

Actually, the decision to take off all the ads has been made a couple of weeks ago,but the new lay-out was planned much longer back. It's not easy to do so, since the Dubroom website is made by hand (no scripts or blog software, stricktly static HTML) and therefore every page has to be changed by hand. However, a significant part of the Dubroom is already changed in the new format and I thought I wanted to give you a list of what's already done first:


http://babylonobserver.dubroom.org
http://books.dubroom.org
http://mp3.dubroom.org
http://radio.dubroom.org
http://studio.dubroom.org
http://www.dubroom.org/main
http://reviews.dubroom.org
http://midi.dubroom.org (Well,that's just one page)
http://ask.dubroom.org or http://dubroom.org/faq which was about time, with questions such as "what is MP3?"
http://contact.dubroom.org
http://rastafari.dubroom.org
http://babylonobserver.dubroom.org
http://messiandread.dubroom.org

Hard working throughout the last couple of days, as hundreds of track pages and hundres more of several other pages had to be completely updated. The whole sub-site should now be ad-free and in new lay-out, with the exception of those Messian Dread articles that can be read at http://articles.dubroom.org (which is another huge one that has to be done in itself).

A couple of MP3 files that were missing have been uploaded to the Dubroom website, as well as a number of dead links and wrong links have been corrected. All track pages should now have accurate links.

So check it out: http://messiandread.dubroom.org (you might have to press F5 for the new look to appear.

At the moment I'm writing this update, I'm working hard on the http://articles.dubroom.org section,which takes a long time since other sub-sites are clocely interlinked with the article section.It's progressing, I'm well over half done there.

I'll work on other sub sites after the article section is done,especially http://crc.dubroom.org.

Truly I do not know when the whole site will be ad-free and updated with the new lay-out but I hope to be able to add new reviews, research, reports and releases later on again.

One Love,
Messian Dread (DubroomWebmaster)

Radio, Studio, Ebook files available (again), and AD Removals from Dubroom Server

WWW, March 16 2014 - Yes, your over-active webmaster did it again and this time he made sure that all episodes but one of Radio Dubroom and all the Studio Dubroom files (with loops, samples, etc) are available for download straight from the Dubroom server.

Sure, this is not the hottest news one could expect but it's a sign that the Dubroom is still online even though new content is not really added in this time. Additionally, all the reading material from http://books.dubroom.org are now available for download again, also from the Dubroom servers. In case you want to read some crucial stuff, head over there now!

Plus, working on getting the Dubroom website ad-free. This is actually a process that can take a while, since also the lay-put of the pages are drasticaly changed during this process. When you want to know the current status, go to the Dubroom Message Boards and check it out. This is the link: http://dubroom.yuku.com/topic/3107/

Radio Dubroom, Creative Commons Archive rescued and available again!

WWW, July 13 2013 - After the sudden and unannounced removal of all MP3 files from IODA Promonet which provided the Dubroom visitors with hundreds of free/legal MP3 files, and after the unfortunate but financially necessary decision to remove the podcasts and other files from Podbean a lot of site-cleaning had to be done. A report.

Yes, it actually was quite a shock to realize that 100's of reviews (all with links) had to be removed. This included artist pages and much more, not just a simple deletion of pages. It was painful but it is done. Then came the next bill for Podbean and it was no longer affordable. Podbean did not just host the podcasts, but also a lot of CreativeCommons albums and singles. An alternative had to be found and at least a temporal one is.

In short, the Dubroom's archive of Creative Commons released material is now hosted on the Dubroom's own server. Fortunately there is enough space. All links have been updated of the site, blog and forum. The podcasts are now stored on a SkyDrive, from where they can be downloaded. There are links on http://radio.dubroom.org and elsewhere on the website. This might just be a temporal solution, in fact it probably is, but for now it is like that. In a way, it makes Radio Dubroom a bit exclusive as we're no longer listed on podcast websites and only visitors/readers of the Dubroom website will have direct access to the non-stop mixes.

Those of you who like to link to the podcasts and/or Creative Commons material, can still do so. However, it is best when you link to the pages that start with http://redirect.dubroom.org as files may move elsewhere in the future and you then might have to change a lot of pages/links. A redirect page, as used by the Dubroom also, can simply be changed in half a minute, without having to worry which page links when to which file.

To conclude about two weeks of pretty hard backstage work on the site, blogs and forum: everything should be working again even though we've lost hundreds of MP3 links. Hopefully you still have them on your computer. The Creative Commons archive is rescued as well as the shows of Radio Dubroom. Happy downloading and listening!

One Love,
Messian Dread (Dubroom Webmaster)

Music Industry Austerity Hits The Dubroom: Hundreds Of Reviewed MP3's No Longer Available

WWW, April 2013 - Sad and bad news: it turns out that IODA has pulled the plug out of it's promotional program which provided the Dubroom visitors with hundreds of free and legal MP3 files. This means that currently, hundreds of links do no longer work and will have to be removed in the upcoming times. Truly a sad "development" for the Online (DUB) Reggae Community and for the Dubroom visitors in particular, as a true resource of available Reggae has been switched of with the touch of a button at some company HQ.
Not much is known about this move, but it seems like it has something to do with a fusion between IODA and The Orchard, a New York based company. Here's one blog about it:

The Quiet Death Of IODA Promonet

Most people don’t know what IODAPromonet is, or was. And I don’t see any news articles about it closing, so I’m making a little post to say goodbye to what was a remarkable resource. IODA (now merged with Orchard) is an online distributor of recordings: they take the music made by independent labels like the one I record for, and feed it out to iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, and other online music retailers and subscription services. Promonet was a site that IODA created, which gave bloggers some tools to easily post and promote music in the IODA catalog. The idea was to encouraged people to discover and promote music in the “Long Tail” – the vast, undiscovered or under-discovered bulk of contemporary recorded music. I used it extensively, posting links to hundreds of records and promotional free mp3s that I found there over the years. Word is that as of today, the site is going dark along with all the content in it. I’ll miss it. But it isn’t a huge surprise. In the evolution of music and commerce in the digital age, there are hundreds of former sites. I’ve been following this stuff since IUMA. What a long strange tail it’s been.

http://ericdin.com/the-quiet-death-of-ioda-promonet/

We could MP3.com to that list as well, along with other (smaller) sites.

Now, what does this mean for the Dubroom? Apart from the obvious "austerity" as hundreds of reviewed MP3's are no longer available for download or use in future podcasts, it's kind of "back to basics" because the focus will obviously be more to the independant online producers, musicians and net labels.

In the coming weeks, links and reviews will be removed from site, forum and blogs.

 EDIT May 2012: Links have been removed from site, forum and blogs. The reviews have not been removed but remain as so-called "orphan pages", pages without any link to them. Should in the future the tracks become available again, it would then be more easy to bring them back "alive".

ROOTS 'N' FUTURE - DUBPLATES FOR POWERFULL SOUND VOLUME 1

ROOTS 'N' FUTURE - DUBPLATES FOR POWERFULL SOUND VOLUME 1DUBROOM MP3 ALBUM REVIEW

 

  WWW, September 2012 - If only for the hard-hitting "Business of War" and it's even harder hitting DUB version, you just have to download this 2010 release by the Swiss based Audioactivity Net Label who brought us such excellent compilations as DUB Propaganda and DUB Disaster 1 and 2. 

As a matter of fact, Roots 'n' Future is a project and collective based around the drummer of the band High Note, Dino. When this is the first of many Dubplates for Powerfull System, it's a very promising one. There's a wide variety of styles on the album, even some Dubstep tracks that you may or may not like. Those with a focus on Steppers DUB will definitely want to check out the album, in fact every lover of DUB Reggae should.

As said in the opening paragraph, tune called "Business of War" and it's heavyweight DUB counterpart is reason enough to download the album. Definitely one of the hardest Steppers DUB recently reviewed right here in the Dubroom.

DOWNLOAD ALBUM - MORE FROM THIS NET LABEL