Loping beats and swirling airs prove an ever more potent mix as An Danssa Dub – The Dance of Dub – issue their best yet!
MUCH DUBBIER FARE
So then, that difficult album number 3, or 4, should it be, to include the pre-band duo release by Euan McLaughlin and Tom Spirals, the brains behind this band of Hebrideo-Caribbean fusion. Or, not so difficult, really, as the mix of reels and reggae seem to share a certain something that allows them to mix and match with ease. If E2 (+/- Red Hot Polkas) offer a more rocksteady skank, in fitting with the Anglo dance tunes at their particular core, this is far dubbier fare, loping out with a greater sense of freedom, evoking more the mountains and islands more than any dirty old town.
As previously, the core duo of McLaughlin and Spirals are joined by Nicky Kirk, Maxi Roots and Ben Burnside, whose guitar, bass and drums impart the rumble and rattle of the boiler room to the fiddle and flute playing over them. Vocals come from various sources, that too in keeping with earlier releases, although Spirals is one of the providers, with that aspect of the band always feeling more of a collective; live sets tend to feature either whoever is available or, if a little frustratingly, backing tracks. We’ll come back to that.
A GRAND START
A moody soundscape opens proceedings, with flute and fiddle, ahead some incoherent vocalisations gradually becoming a toasted patois incantation. Initially suspecting this to be Spirals, some research reveals it more likely to be the husky tones of Italee, a Jamaican singer, songwriter, poet, producer, designer, and activist from Kingston. As her talkover leads the progressive skank of the musicians, so the groove of Scottish Neo-trad becomes entwined with the heavy, meditative, driving basslines, all with the reliably biscuit tin clatter of dub percussion. Knowing the vocal is “authentic” somehow makes a difference, a personal particular bugbear being of cold cod reggae. Somewhere also in the mix is the electro harp of up and coming Scots player, MAL, aka Malachy Arnold, and it is a grand start.
Marina P is the next guest, for Brave (Like A Girl), and if the opener was grand, this is spectacular, a slow lope that just builds and builds. Marina P is more often associated with Glasgow based sound system, Mungo’s Hi-Fi, my guess being they hooked up in the hillsides of Knockengorroch, the fabled Scottish mini-Glastonbury of all things fusion. She applies a glorious brooding presence to the lurch of instrumentation, the lyric a proud feminine statement. So much so, it could be the ideal riposte to Dylan’s anthem of misogyny, Just Like A Woman. And you can stuff my need for authenticity, by the way: Ms. P is Italian, and Wends, who also appears, and co-wrote the song, with P, McLaughlin and Spirals, is a McAuslan from Greenock. Fiddle weaves between the vocals and the dreamy dubscape.
SKANKING BANJOS?
A touch of spaghetti western inhabits the intro to Trials And Tribulations, this time with the rusty bluegrass vocals of Cahalen Morrison, who seems to be popping up across any number of Scottish projects this year. He is also a banjo player and, whether it is he, or Ciaran Ryan, also present, or both, playing the banjo, the question about whether banjo can skank is soon answered, and it is in the affirmative. A gorgeous rolling wagon of a song, this album is already demonstrating quite how far the imagination of the band has expanded.
Shooglenifty’s Kaela Rowan is next up, perfect for Cò Ni Mire Rium, a first and only excursion, for this disc, into the Gaelic, her keening vocal ideal for the echo-laden song. Another positive is the greater confidence with which the band tackle the influx of effects so integral to “version”ing their music. Whilst the production is down to the McLaughlin/Spirals partnership, I note input from Black Hole Sound System and Black Nebula, with mixing added by Paolo Baldini DubFiles, a current doyen of the art.
MOMENTUM & HIGH STANDARDS EACH MAINTAINED
With Wends back holding the mike, and MAL’s harp more obviously featuring, he adding a repeating cascading ripple of notes, Tall As A Mountain maintains both the momentum and the high standard. The aforementioned Black Hole Sound System/Simon Parals get a formal featuring for Kinara, with Black Nebula/Dean and Adjua Forrest getting the same for Born To Be Free. The first is a more fast paced, with what sounds like melodica adding to the fiddle/flute melodic. The bass adds an intermittent wiry clang and it is a joy, marrying the Hebridean sounding air with the urban street beat. The second is then a toasty almost rap that slots into a dense rhythmic groove. It also seems to drop in aspects of the song, or at least some words, of Can I Get A Witness. And I’m guessing it is, this time, Spirals, who takes on the later rapid-fire vocal cantillation.
One thing I didn’t anticipate was a sudden influx of Balkan fumes, which arise for Carnyx, as McLaughlin’s fiddle now goes the full Romani. I’m minded of EastWind, the groundbreaking Andy Irvine/Davy Spillane album of 1992, if with a bona fide bluebeat backing. And that’s good, believe me. Very good. Leaving only time for the similar exotica of Salaam, where the singer, Sukanya (Varadarajan), apparently “India’s first female dub singer”, goes all Sheila Chandra, over a never chunkier backing. It is a tremendous flute heavy fusion and a splendid note on which to close this very excellent album,
BREAK IT THROUGH
If this release doesn’t give a well-deserved breakthrough for “The Dance of Dub”, with this superbly-judged Future Dub from Ancient Scotland, something is well wrong with the world. As ever there is, but we can hope. And it’ll mean less reliance on backing tapes in the wild, too.
Here’s some tour dates and here’s one of the standout tracks, Tall As A Mountain:
An Danssa Dub: Website