europe's most crucial dubmasters ...
freshly squeezed electromagnetic dub...drink deeply!
"The Dub musical revolution stemmed originally from Jamaica - in particular the tiny studio once run by the late Osbourne Ruddock, aka King Tubby, in Kingston. Sometimes we still underestimate the profound influence of reggae: its brilliant, skewed methodology, its confusing stellar panoply of engineers, DJs, producers, musicians, stars and crooks."
"When King Tubby first discovered dub, the revelation came like so many technological discoveries of pop music, through an accident. It was Tubby, cutting discs for Duke Reid at Treasure Isle, who first discovered the thrill of stripping a vocal from its backing track and then manipulating the instrumental arrangement with drop-outs, echo, equalization and electronic effects."
"Dub music is like a long echo delay, looping through time. When you double or dub, you replicate, reinvent, make one or many versions. Long delay, short delay, space echo, reverb, flange, phase, noise gate, echo feedback, shotgun snare, rubber bass, zipping highs, cavernous bottoms; the effects are there for enhancement, but for a dubmaster, they can displace time, shift the beat, heighten a mood, suspend a moment."
"Every few years Dub regenerates, sometimes so quiet that only a disciple could hear, sometimes shatteringly loud, spreading out a song or a groove over a vast landscape of peaks and deep trenches, extending their hooks and beats to a vanishing point. Dub creates new maps: sound sculptures, sacred sites, balm and shock for the mind, body, and spirit -- turning the rational order of musical sequences into an ocean of sensation."-- David Toop from MixMag (author of "Rap Attack 2" and "Ocean of Sound" published by Serpent's Tail).
Love the memories that this time of music evokes. HIA were pioneers as much as FSOL or AFX were for sure, and along with the Oscillate crew, they have done more for the electronic music scene in Brum than anyone. On its own merits this is a great exercise in sound design as much as it is in music and it seems as fresh now as it ever did. Leon Trimble
A multisensory, meditative ambient delight with undertones of dub and techno, contrasting structured beats with airy synth melodies. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 17, 2022
Drift away on the soothing ambient music of Maps and Diagrams, with compositions that land on the tuneful side of drone. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 4, 2024
Serene ambient music that evokes guided meditation through the use of phase-shifting melodies, droning bass, and gauzy synth textures. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 8, 2024