Lee “Scratch” Perry / The Black Ark Players – Black Ark In Dub (1981)

December 21, 2021

Black Ark is (was) the name of the studio that Lee Perry constructed himself at his home in Jamaica. It’s – apparently – primitive gear and set up (compared to other big-business owned studios in Jamaica at the time) could easily have been the laughing stock of the record cutting elite, but instead what Lee Perry did with so little is now part of musical history.

The dubs on this record seem to include cuts from the Black Ark house band, regardless of who they played for or where the cuts ended up originally, Lee (and some cohorts) have dismantled and reassembled the tracks using the mixing desk as an instrument (or a weapon of peace!), as is the way with dub music, creating something entirely new and unique in the process.

I absolutely love this stuff but, I suppose like jazz, I find the whole dub / reggae / dance hall stuff to be difficult to penetrate. I’ll get there! Until then, I’ll just pretend that I know what I’m talking about! Haha!