Disc of the day
Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley
Magnificent late-'50s singles round-up that keeps on giving.
Features Disc of the day
The Congos
Heart Of The Congos
(Black Art, 1977/ Reissue Blood And Fire 1996)
Roots reggae's Lee Perry-produced Pet Sounds!
The flange'd and phase'ing opening track depicts a humble fisherman driven by his need to find food for his family, and it's not the only reference to feeding the hungry on this roots classic. If this, as a red-eyed vicar might hypothesise, was also a spiritual hunger that needed sating, Heart Of The Congos is an all-you-can-eat gourmet feast. Dreamed up by mystic harmonisers The Congos with production magus Lee 'Scratch' Perry at his Black Ark studio, with crack session help courtesy of Sly Dunbar, Ernest Ranglin, Gregory Isaacs and more, it presents lilting, beauteously sung parables of Rastafarian spirituality that combine weight with feelings of levitation. The mellifluous interplay between falsetto Cedric Myton, tenor Ashanti Roy Johnson and the Melvin Franklin-like bass of Watty Burnett is a thing of magic, but an apocalyptic flipside co-exists: for all its joyous pop reggae sounds and the presence of Scratch's famous moo'ing cow sound effect, Children Crying is a plea for deliverance, Sodom & Gomorrow has nemesis in its repeated phrase "burning!" and Ark Of The Covenant also brings the expectation of Old Testament wrath. Similarly ambiguous is Scratch's Echoplex'd up production, which makes a close, elemental listening experience (that irie vicar above's just said that the drums are rocks, the bass is the earth, the voices water, and the dub effects are air - woah!) that demands your attention. Bizarrely, Island records passed on the LP, and it was only widely available with Blood And Fire's expanded reissue in 1996 - a timely reminder that, even for an album made when reggae was so strong, Heart Of The Congos remains outstanding.
Stuart Muirhead
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 04/11/2009
Further Listening
Lee Perry ‘The Upsetter’ Presents - Roast Fish Collie Weed And Corn Bread
(Upsetter, 1976)
Junior Murvin – Police And Thieves (Island, 1977)
Augustus Pablo – East Of The River Nile (Message, 1977)
Previous Disc of the day
-
Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley
Magnificent late-'50s singles round-up that keeps on giving.
6:00 AM GMT 20/11/2009
-
-
Isley Brothers - The Brothers: Isley
The Cincinnati siblings bed into their heavy period.
6:00 AM GMT 18/11/2009
-
Lee Morgan - Search For The New Land
The trumpeter's most soulful excursion entrances MOJO messageboarder.
6:00 AM GMT 16/11/2009
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