Garvey’s Ghost cover

Garvey’s Ghost

Released

The dub version of Burning Spear’s seminal roots album Marcus Garvey from 1976 is generally considered by reggae fans to be either diluted dub-lite or one of the finest dub albums of the time, with this writer falling in the latter category. Most dub reggae of this period was all about the space created by the judicious removal of musical parts and the addition of cavernous reverbs and feedbacking delays, but there’s very little FX trickery here. Instead, the production is dense, thick and incredibly detailed, the drums and percussion in particular pushed right to the front of the mix while the other instruments shift in and out of focus, sometimes buried away in the background or appearing as ghostly slivers of their former selves. It’s like an MRI scan of the original album, opening up each song so you can see how all the parts work together. Sublime.

Harold Heath

Suggestions
Dubbing with the Observer cover

Dubbing with the Observer

King Tubby, Observer Allstars
Dog With a Rope cover

Dog With a Rope

Flowering Inferno, Quantic
Screamadelica cover

Screamadelica

Primal Scream
Pleasure Dub cover

Pleasure Dub

Tommy McCook, Errol Brown, The Supersonics
Find Your Flame cover

Find Your Flame

Nubiyan Twist
Super Ape cover

Super Ape

The Upsetters, Lee "Scratch" Perry
Mello Dub cover

Mello Dub

Dub Specialist