REGGAE NEWS - ALBUM RELEASES

VP records have gone deep into their vaults again and come up with two brilliant releases for this year's Christmas season.

First there will be the mighty Wailing Souls' 'Wailing' album. This has always been a classic from the early 1980s dancehall era with some of the most militant mixes by Scientist.

Second there is Johnny Osbourne's 'Nightfall' which became a much soughtafter item during the last years as it is slightly different to his 'Innah Disco Style' release which featured some of the same tracks.

Both albums were produced by Linval Thompson and feature the great Roots Radics as backing musicians.

Here is a list we gathered of forthcoming albums releases :

=September 2008 Releases=

Bob Marley & The Wailers - All Studio Albums with Japanese Vinyl Replica Sleeve
Bullwackie's All Stars - Black World - Wackies (LP & CD)
Dub Specialist - Dub - Heartbeat (LP & CD)
Half Pint - Greetings - 17 North Parade (CD)
Johnny Osbourne - Most Wanted - Greensleeves (CD)
Linval Thompson - 12" Rulers - Greensleeves (CD)
Serge Gainsbourg - Aux Armes Et Caetera - Mercury (LP)
Skatalites - Stretching Out - Roir (LP)
Symarip - Skinhead Moonstomp (Deluxe Edition) - Sanctuary (CD)
Tenor Saw Meets Nitty Gritty - 17 North Parade (CD)
UB40 - The Lost Tapes (Live At The Venue 1980) - EMI (CD)
Various - Old To the New (Special Deluxe Edition) - VP (CD)
Various - The Reggae Christmas Collection - Sanctuary (CD)
Various - Dub Sampler Vol 3 - Jamaican Recordings (LP & CD)

=October 2008 Releases=

Eddy Grant - Killer On the Ramage (Deluxe Edition) - Universal (CD)
Eddy Grant - Walking In Sunshine (Deluxe Edition) - Universal (CD)
Sly & Robbie - Inspiration Information - Strut (LP & CD)
Half Pint - Essential Roots Anthology - Essential (CD)
Various - George Phang Powerhouse Selector's Choice Vol 1,2,3,4 - 17 North Parade (CD)
Various - Randy's 50th Anniversary - 17 North Parade (CD)
Various - The Biggest Reggae One-Drop Anthems 2008 - Greensleevse (CD + DVD)
Various - Wackies Sampler Vol 3 - Wackies (CD)

Johnny Osbourne - Most Wanted
GRELCD615

1. Fally Ranking (12” mix)
2. Trenchtown School (12” mix)
3. Ice Cream Love
4. Back Off (12’ mix feat. Papa Tullo)
5. Trying To Turn Me On (12’ mix feat. Papa Tullo)
6. Give a Little Love
7. Angel In My Arms (12” mix)
8. Water Pumping
9. Rewind
   1. In The Area
   2. Buddy Bye Bye
   3. No Sound Like We
   4. Dub Plate Playing
   5. Struggle Ha Fi Gwan
   6. Trickster (12’ mix)

to be released in September 2008.

From The Heartbeat website:

Heartbeat Records to Release Deluxe Edition of Johnny Osbourne's Classic Studio One Album
(Posted 04/24/08)
On July 10, 2008, Heartbeat Records will release Johnny Osbourne - Truths and Rights Deluxe Edition. Originally released in 1979, Johnny Osbourne’s Truths and Rights LP helped usher in the 1980s dancehall sound. It solidified Johnny Osbourne’s popularity, and he would go on to become one of the most prolific of the dancehall reggae singers. Recorded in Jamaica and produced by Clement Dodd, Johnny was presented with a plethora of classic Studio One rhythms from the vaults on which to record. The legendary foundation label was undergoing a creative renaissance with new prototypical dancehall albums by Freddie McGregor, Sugar Minott, Michigan & Smiley, Willie Williams, and of course, Johnny Osbourne. This deluxe edition includes all ten album tracks, remastered from the original tapes. A further six tracks – extended mixes, a dee-jay version, a dub version, and a bonus track from the period – have been added. The liner notes include a recent interview with Cleveland “Clevie” Browne, of Steely & Clevie fame.

Innocent Youths was the first long player released on Jerry Brown's Summer Records imprint, hitting the emerging Toronto reggae marketplace in 1977. In 2008, the original LP is virtually extinct, a highly coveted and extremely rare piece of Canadian reggae history (often described as the northern answer to Lee Perry's Black Ark). For the uninitiated, we are talking heavy bass, drums, reverb, echo, roots vocals, keys, guitar, percussion, and Brown's wild style touch behind the controls.

Earth, Roots & Water was initially formed in the mid-seventies to provide hard rhythms and tight backing tracks for the growing number of musical friends and family who ventured to Brown's Malton, Ontario, basement studio. Over the years, a veritable who's who of Jamaican music scene passed through Summer Sound to record with like-minded brethren. Jackie Mittoo, Willi Williams, Johnny Osbourne, Carl Dawkins, Leroy Sibbles, Stranger Cole, and King Jammy are just a handful of the label's impressive roster.

By 1977, Earth, Roots & Water had developed into an engaging live entity as well, based around the talents of Adrian "Homer" Miller (vocals), Anthony "Base" Hibbert (bass), Colin "Zuba" Suban (drums), Matt Shelley (guitar), and Tony "KB" Moore (keyboards). Both a sonic and visual force, the charismatic youths soon found themselves performing in and around the Toronto area, opening up for The Police and The Stranglers while extending the UK-born punk/reggae love affair to North America.

In 2008, Light In The Attic Records along with Jerry Brown and Jamaica-Toronto series producer Kevin Howes (aka Sipreano) have decided to share this vital bounty to reggae fans the world over. Innocent Youths contains the complete studio album lovingly remastered from the original Summer Records master tapes. Over 30 years ahead of its time, this maverick material showcases the breadth of Earth, Roots & Water. Dig in...

Tracklist:
1 - Innocent Youths
2 - Tribulations (listen here)
3 - Liberation
4 - Love The Same Old Way
5 - Lou Sent Me
6 - Jah Les' Lament
7 - Zion
Exclusive itunes bonus tracks:
8 - Tribulations Version
9 - Jah Les' Lament Version
10 - In Love
11 - Earth Roots & Water Funk Instrumental

Earth, Roots & Water on Roots Archives

source : Light In The Attic

An England Story is released on the 3rd March 2008 and is available in all good retail and internet stores. You can buy it early right now from us at Soul Jazz Records

An England Story is a unique double-CD featuring over 25 years of MC culture in the UK showing the links and musical path from the arrival of UK Dancehall and Soundsystems in the early 1980s, through successive musical movements such as UK Hip-Hop, Jungle up to today’s Garage, Grime and Dubstep.
As well as featuring many of the most important artists and producers, An England Story also comes with extensive text, interviews and exclusive photographs.

The development of Black music in the United Kingdom owes much to the influence of Jamaican and US music on each successive generation of Carribean immigrants to the UK - from Windrush to the present day. UK based MC’s take these influences, mix them up with local references and styles thus creating an identity of Black British culture. This is constantly evolving not just musically but also in terms of each subsequent generation’s relationship to British society. As Tricky put it in Massive Attack's Blue Lines, of "English upbringing, background Caribbean”

Since the evolution of the 'fast chat' dancehall style of the early 80s, the influence of reggae music and culture has been crucial to the development of urban music in Britain: from the heavy sampling of Jamaican vocals/instrumentals employed by jungle, hardcore and garage, to grime's London take on the soundclash, the riddim version and patois-inflected rhymes. The importance of the Jamaican soundsystem concept and its dubplates, specials, clashes and heavy, heavy bass is a constant throughout these different stylistic mutations

As we gear up for our next Dubstep compilation album, Steppas’ Delight dropping in the near future, we’re also releasing 3 killer singles from 3 Dubstep heavyweights: Cotti, Ramadanman and Cult of the 13th Hour. We have available very limited exclusive white labels of all 3 available now only on our website and in the Sounds of The Universe shop!.

source : Roots Archives

Greensleeves Records are releasing a compilation CD of Eek A Mouse material on 3rd March. The best news concerning this release is it’s mainly comprised of 12″ versions from the Mouse at his prime circa 1980-83 so will be pretty much essential unless you own a big pile of those old Greensleeves 12″ discos. The tracks slated for this release (not in release order) are:
Wa Do Dem 12” Version
Anarexol 12” Version
Teacher 12” Version
Noah’s Ark 12” Version
Christmas A Come 12” Version
Do You Remember 12” Version
Wild Like Tiger 12” Version
Operation Eradication 12” Version
Terrorists In The City 12” Version
Ganja Smuggling
Sensee Party
Star, Daily News & Gleaner

(Dance Crasher News)

An essential new compilation of classic recordings from the funkiest group in the history of Reggae! Available to buy in all good record stores or online here now at Soul Jazz Records

The Sound Dimension have recorded some of the most important songs in Reggae music; songs such as “Real Rock”, “Drum Song”, “Heavy Rock”, “Rockfort Rock”, “In Cold Blood” – all classic songs that have become the ‘foundation’ of Reggae music, endlessly versioned and re-versioned by Jamaican artists since the time they were first recorded to the present day. As the in-house band at Studio One in the late 1960’s, The Sound Dimension also played alongside everyone from The Heptones, Alton Ellis, Ken Boothe, Marcia Griffiths and more. Similar to their US counterparts The Funk Brothers at Motown and Booker T and The MGs at Stax, The Sound Dimension recorded on a daily basis incredibly catchy and funky tunes matched by a seamless musicality.
Featuring musicians of the calibre of Ernest Ranglin, Jackie Mittoo, Eric Frater, Leroy Sibbles, Don Drummond Jnr, Deadley Headley and more, the Sound Dimension existed from around 1967-70 and all the recordings featured here were originally released during this period. For a band with a fluid line-up, they had an amazingly consistent sound laying down classic rhythms for the singers of the day at Studio One as well as stretching out with their own recordings.
None of this can explain the importance of this music. “Real Rock”, “Mojo Rocksteady”, “Rockfort Rock”, “Drum Song”, “In Cold Blood” – the melodies to these classic songs are a thousand times better known than the musicians who originally created them. Played and re-played by every house band for every producer on the island, these iconic rhythms became the basis for dancehall and laid the foundations for the future of Jamaican music.
This album can be seen as a companion to the earlier Sound Dimension release “Jamaica Soul Shake” and together these two albums make a unique and definitive document of a seriously important set of recordings.

source : roots-archives

Pressure Sounds will be releasing the Joe Higgs album 'Life of Contradiction' on the 18th of Feb 2008 with two additional bonus tracks on the CD. The LP will be a single vinyl album without the additional bonus tracks although the tracks (with versions) will be available on two separate 45s. The 45 of 'Let Us Do Something' is the original Elevation recording and not the later re-recorded version.

We (Pressure Sounds - RA) have decided to keep to the original artwork on the album as it’s so good!!! There will be a full CD booklet with sleeve notes. There will be more information on this release in the New Year. It's a great record and we hope you enjoy it.

CD Tracklisting
Come On Home
Got To Make A Way
Wake Up And Live
Life Of Contradiction
Who Brought Down The Curtains
There’s A Reward
Hard Times Don’t Bother Me
My Baby Still Loves Me
She Was The One
Song My Enemy Sings
Bonus track for CD only: Let Us Do Something
Bonus track for CD only: Freedom Journey – Karl Masters & Joe Higgs

source : pressure.co.uk