The Upsetters: Scratch The Upsetter Again (Music On Vinyl 180g, Colored Vinyl) Vinyl LP The Upsetters

“This album is a must have for anyone interested in Lee Perry. He produced this album just after the birth of his daughter and you can feel his joy in the music.” – Music On Vinyl

Unlike a lot of these fairweather reggae phoneys out here, I don’t give it up to Lee Perry as the creator of dub, or even an innovator in the genre (it was King Tubby who mixed Perry’s Blackboard Jungle Dub, oft considered the first deliberate dub album). But he was unquestionably one of the greatest Jamaican producers of the 70s, and there’s something to be said for records like this one, The Upsetters‘ fifth in just two years, paving the way for the dub LP – weird, groovy, mostly instrumental (but not DUB!). Perry’s experimental impulses are on full blast, from innovative looping and overdubbing (“The Result”), spacious and atmospheric mixdowns (“Outer Space”), weird dissonant solos and key changes (“Touch Of Fire”). You can hear the unborn dub sound practically bursting out of this record’s chest, Xenomorph-style, via the spring reverb on “Take One.” “Soul Walk” and “I Want To Thank You” are super lush with spaced-out electric keyboard textures. I don’t imagine this was exactly setting the dancehalls on fire in 1969/70 – more for the music lovers and the freaks – but who knows, Kingston bad boys pop their guns to some weird shit. Limited to 1000 stamped and numbered copies on 180g orange colored vinyl.

• 180g orange colored vinyl
• individually stamped + numbered
• limited to 1000 copies
• music label: Music On Vinyl 2019

reviewed by sleve mcdichael 08/2019