Sly and Robbie - "Drum & Bass Strip to the Bone by Howie B"

So I've been reading a lot about a new genre in the UK that's being called "dubstep". The Wire (in issue 271) ran a short profile of Digital Mystikz, a duo who is currently acting as one of the major exponents of the dubstep sound, which mixes electronic and dance elements with dub's heavy bass and spacy reverb. They're releasing records and hosting club nights for their DMZ label, and it seems to be all the rage in the UK's underground scene. I hopped onto the trusty internet and started searching for some tunes to see what this new beat actually sounds like, and it turns out that for the most part, it's good shit. It strikes me as a weird combination of drum 'n' bass and trip-hop, using the rhythmic complexity of the former at the downbeat pace of the latter.

Partway through the track "Jah Power Dub" by Mala, who with his partner Coki makes up Digital Mystiks, I realized it sounded a little familiar. Conceptually, anyway. Y'see, back in the mists of time, around 1998 or so, reggae legends Sly and Robbie released a record with Scottish trip-hop guru Howie B manning the mixing board. That record was Drum & Bass Strip to the Bone. As every single available review of this record is so keen to point out, it's not a drum 'n' bass record; its title refers to the fact that Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare are (I'm pointing this out for the uninitiated) Jamaica's premiere rhythm section. They've worked on records by just about every reggae legend of the last thirty or forty years, and every white guy with a big enough bank roll to have them flown in has done so at some point in his career. And if you find Grace Jones records at all palatable (sordid confession: I do), you can thank Sly and Robbie.

So anyway, back to D&BSTTB: I've loved this record since it came out, and I always thought it was ahead of its time. Turns out, I couldn't have been more correct. There are moments on this one, say "Fatigue Chic," where it seems Messrs. Dunbar, Shakespeare, and Bernstein are pretty much telling us that this is where electronic music and reggae are going: some kind of weird future where hybridization is the norm and not the exception, where acoustic instruments are blended comfortably alongside electronic, impossible-to-actually build virtual ones.

The record blends classic heavy "riddim"-style playing with ambient textures and squalling electro-noise to great effect. Some people hear this record and think it's boring, but then some people think reggae all sounds exactly the same. And if you haven't heard much of it, I can see why you'd think that. But then again, if I'd grown up in Turkmenistan and moved to America in the 1980s, I doubt I'd have known the difference between Ratt, Poison, Kiss, Judas Priest, and Motley Crue. It's all about context and immersion.

Mr. B brings in a crew of studio musicians to fill out the arrangements, and this brings up my only complaint with the album: there are moments across these tracks where you wish the drums and bass were simply counterbalanced by some floaty, reverberated sound and left standing sparse and spacious. Sometimes more isn't necessarily more, and this is often the case with dub. But it evens out, because a piece like opening cut "Superthruster" just wouldn't be as cool without those little processed guitar bits that come up every few bars.

Listen to this record, love it, buy it. If you'd enjoyed it two years ago and wanted to find more like it, my answer would have been "tough titty because the team that brought you Drum & Bass Strip to the Bone hasn't worked together since that album." However, thanks to Digital Mystikz via DMZ, there's now a wealth of electronic ambient dub just waiting to be discovered. Support this scene!