We’re more than happy to anounce a night with two of the most important figures of the contemporary UK Dub & Reggae music scene joining forces at YAAM Berlin in october!
Dennis Bovell & Band (live)
One of the most revered dub and reggae producers, Dennis Bovell has been leaving his mark on contemporary music for over 40 years. He knocked out some of the ’80s finest dub, disco and post-punk gems – both as a solo artist and as a producer for I Roy, Steel Pulse, The Slits and many more.
There’s a received wisdom when it comes to the dons of dub reggae. Lee “Scratch” Perry, King Tubby and Joe Gibbs have their places in the pantheon and rightly so. Scratch for his psychedelic textures, found sounds and madcap ideas; Tubby for his lush effects and electronic innovation; Gibbs for his cavernous productions. But how about Keith Hudson or Scientist? Most of all, what about Dennis Bovell? The latter is certainly among the most adventurous sonic surgeons in his field. Yet his work is surprisingly underrated.
As a producer, musician, songwriter and engineer, Bovell welded together dub, disco, funk and post-punk — sometimes all at once — and revolutionised the sound of British music. He was behind perhaps the greatest lovers rock track to hit the UK pop charts, Janet Kay’s ‘Silly Games’, and has an incredible discography of dub records to his name, the most recent of which Dub 4 Daze dropped at the end of 2015 on Glitterbeat Records.
Adrian Sherwood (live)
Thirty years since he founded the On-U Sound label, Adrian Sherwood talks to Melissa Bradshaw about its history, the grim early 80s, his work in the studio, and the trouble with contemporary sound.
Adrian Sherwood has a phenomenal CV. Inspired by reggae to teach himself sound engineering in his teens, Sherwood has forged a career that has epitomised the inter-racial trajectory of dub through England, from putting UK production on the map, right through the mutually inspiring transfusion of reggae and punk, acid house and experimental hip hop. He has collaborated with the likes of Prince Far I, Lee Scratch Perry (including the seminal album Time Boom X Di Devil Dead), Ari Up, PiL, Mark Stewart, Depeche Mode, Primal Scream and Asian Dub Foundation. In a logical progression he has recently commissioned remixes from and toured with dubstep producers Mala (Digital Mystikz) and Kode 9.