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After almost 20 years, Long Beach Dub Allstars are back with a new record. A self-titled album often means a new opening, sometimes a big change of a band’s sound. Is it the case with this Californian legend known for merging reggae, punk rock, ska, dub, hip-hop, and pretty much everything around?
Do you sometimes order a record without first hearing it? Without knowing even one song? Steady Social Club’s album was the first in a very long time that I purchased without hearing a single second of it.
Have you ever wondered what do producers do after the last musician leaves their studio in the evening? Well, they just take all their toys – microphones, tape machines, echoes, reverbs, mixers, and any other retro junk and play with it the whole night long. They do dub!
Many great records have been released this year. Lots of good ska, reggae, even rocksteady. Yet, what Mango Wood created still managed to make a huge impression. Imagine that you put on the record, hear the first sounds, next tunes and suddenly you realize that something is not quite alright, it’s gotta be a mistake, someone has put the wrong record into the sleeve. It was supposed to be fresh stuff from this year, not an early reggae compilation from the 60s. I got conned!
This album’s title kinda sounds as if the Vikings were coming and the only reasonable line of action was to quickly evacuate. There’s something to it as smörgåsbord means Swedish table. In this case, the buffet is all about ska music and relates to a plentiful, all-around set of dishes prepared by The Players Band.
I like to listen to bands from warmer countries in the summer. I imagine beach concerts and tropical drinks with umbrella straws. In Poland the heat is already lurking around the corner, we are slowly coming out of lockdown, and only live music will be missing in this puzzle, at least for some time. Fortunately, there’s an album coming to the rescue and although it came out in January, it will be good to listen to in our part of the world right now.
If you were wondering if anyone plays solid ska in Denver, Colorado, I assure you they do. There’s at least one ensemble, which for the second decade makes sure that fans in need of such sounds have their local crew on whose gig they can always count. “Lunchin’ with The Dendrites” is their latest EP, which quite stirred up my perception of the band.
Red Stripes are a 10-piece band from Hong Kong. In March They released their second album. I associate Asian ska primarily with ska-jazz and rather classic kind of playing truthful to Jamaican 60s roots. But here we have music subtly but firmly touched by typical British 2 Tone.
Jay Nugent a.k.a. Agent Jay a.k.a. Crazy Baldhead is to most known as the guitarist of The Slackers. While there he’s disciplined to give the band a good backbone, he lets himself loose in his solo project.
I’m always very happy when I manage to find on the internet a band I’ve never heard before, and whose sound is way above average. Of course, I am even more surprised it turns out to be a band with more than 10 years of experience. That’s the case with Taapa Groove, who in 2018 released their 4th album – “Punto Negro”.
Today is the premiere of new Neil Martin’s album. You might know him better as Alpheus, a singer specialized in rocksteady music. Will his new piece of work be actually a winner as the title suggests?
Read what one of our Readers liked the most about Caz Gardiner & The Badasonics’ debut album.
The history of this album is very charming. Here is an American living temporarily in London. One day she finally enters the record store, which she passes by every day on her way home. And because it was not a completely random store, after passing the threshold the American finds herself in a completely different world.
In May I’ve already shared with you my optimistic predictions about new Aggrolites album. Two tracks presented before the premiere allowed me to rub my hands with glee and to prepare my player for some intensive work. The physical record arrived just today, but the truth is I’ve already had it memorized.
NYSJE is kind of like a speeding train which races forward for 25 years now without any decelerations. Occasional exchange of passengers doesn’t have any serious impact on the general direction and definitely not on the great reputation of this ska-jazz torpedo. Last Saturday New Yorkers released “Break Thru”, their first studio longplay for eight years. Is there any break through here?
At the very beginning I must confess, that I actually have no clue about musical genre called mento. It doesn’t change the fact that the Los Apartamentos’ debut album is soo good and it raises so much positive emotions in me, that I feel downright obligated to write a few words about it and encourage you to make a closer acquaintance with it.
