reggae reggae to the maximum

A week is a long time in politics. In the world of blogging it must be a fortnight. In my world its just seven days. Which brings me nicely to the purchases over the last seven days. As the post's title suggests there may be some reggae involved.

I'd like to herald the arrival of a new seven inch from All City Records that has just hit the shelves. It's a new tune by T-Woc called 'Warning' and it features Brother Culture on vocals. It's a proper stepper and there's a great dub version excursion on the flip. Check it out.

I ventured down the back of Tower Records ground floor the other day and a Trojan seven inch box-set was staring me in the eye. It's the 'Haunted House' Skinhead Sevens selection and it features some real skinhead reggae gems on it by the likes of The Upsetters, The Cimarons and The Black Diamonds. It has eight seven inches in the box-set and a great picture on the cover. See above.

I dropped into Oxfam today and came across the third Bstrd Boots seven inch release for one euro. It's the Drums of Death remix of two Roots Manuva tunes, 'Witness' and 'Join the Dots'. I'm really liking it. This means I now have about 8 different remixes of 'Witness'. That could be a future podcast.

I also picked up some other prize gems in the same shop. Three twelve inches from the early nineties. The first is a Sabres of Paradise release that was released to raise awareness in the UK about the Criminal Justice Bill. Its the 'Repetitive Beats' EP and features tunes by Primal Scream and On U Sound. The second record was the seventh release on the Philly Blunt label, an off-shoot of Roni Size's V Recordings. It's called Bass-Switch and its by Firefox and Glamour Gold, who are better known as Roni Size and DJ Krust. It's not a patch on the earlier Philly Blunt releases but it still holds its own considering an awful lot of shite jungle was being released around this time (1996). The final tune from Oxfam is an old Shut Up and Dance release from 1992 by IC3. It was simply called The EP and featured MC Duke. Duke later produced for the jungle label Suburban Base. The tunes on the e.p. veer towards the rap sound that SUAD were into at the time. It still sounds deadly.

Keeping with Shut Up and Dance, I popped into the new premises that Beatfinder are occupying and I think I made the first purchases in the new premises. The first was another SUAD record by PJ and Smiley called The Art of Moving Butts. The second was a Hal Roach comedy album recorded live at Jurys Cabaret. I can't wait to mix those up.