L.S. Diezel & Launch DAT - Aliens (Digidub)

There's been a whole load of great dub reissues recently and, with this, Digidub have unearthed one of the best. As the label says, the original 12" is 'rare as rocking horse shit' so this 10" release is something to get your hands on while you can.

L.S. Diezel's experimental approach sees them merge breaks with dub that, despite the release's vintage, still sounds fresh and innovative even now. On two of the tracks they're joined by Launch DAT - actually the alias of label owner Lee Berwick - which adds yet more layers to an already multi-layered approach. Things get just a little funky, especially on the Poor Man's Glory track which you can hear in my Dandelion Radio show this month: get it on-demand here.

Look out for something from Digidub's recently released Julian Fairshare tribute in my August show.

Yard Act - You're Gonna Need A Little Music (Island)

No cliched talk of difficult third albums here or half-hearted reviews from other sources. Let's get straight to the point: You're Gonna Need A Little Music takes Yard Act into new musical territories without completely sacrificing what I love about them. 

That word 'completely' is doing a bit of work in there to ensure I'm being honest and sufficiently nuanced in my appraisal of his new work. The highlight for me remains the already previewed Redeemer: I love the new darkness the band finds here, while finding some appreciation for the many other textures that accompany it across the album. Talky Talky People, which follows, is downright playful in places while album opener Empty Pledges seems to use the idea of artistic sincerity too archly to be taken entirely seriously, something which the introduction of traffic noises and heavy breathing facilitates.

If Yard Act seem to be asking us not to take them too seriously here, that doesn't mean they're telling us the world is just a playground and nothing more: the sparse bass on Tall Tales and sub-anthemic undertones supplement that darker edge of Redeemer. I come away from the album pondering its sometimes confusing changes of direction but, it seems to me, it's a collection set on making us think rather than providing all the answers. Perhaps a good indicator of where Jamie Smith's head is at too.

You can hear standout track Redeemer in my Dandelion Radio show, now available on-demand here.

Manwel T meets Messian Dread

Manwel T's bandcamp site has become a rich source of reggae and dub productions and remixes and I've discovered a number of great dub tunes and artists after being introduced to them here. This came out in the spring and finds the Maltese producer in a meeting of minds with prolific dub artist Messian Dread, whose vast output covers around 30 years and can be found here.

The results is a dub/roots collision that acts as a superb showcase for anyone unfamiliar with either artist. I'm playing Dub Culture in my FSK show this month: now available to stream on-demand here. Consider it an introduction to the work of the two artists. While you're at the Manwel T site, check out his recent excellent Unidentified Flying Cymbals release too.

Shelf Life: Benjamin Wood: A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better (2018)

The character of Fran Hardesty fills Wood's third novel to such a degree that all other characters exist in his shadow, most notably his son Dan who ends the novel unable to escape not just the memory of his father's brutal actions but the long-dead man himself, whose persona offers a rich and destructive cocktail combining rampant self-assurance with self-pity.

I've always found Wood's use of dialogue one of the most appealing facets of his writing and Fran offers a fascinating vehicle for this: one moment seducing a young folk singer, the next weaving a horrifyingly convincing rationale for those set to die at his hands. Yet bound up with the attributes of a an abusive character is the meticulous and careful craftsman and lover of the Cocteau Twins. An easier option, you feel, would to have Fran driving around to a soundtrack of classic rock and heavy metal: instead, he puts on Blue Bell Knoll and Treasure - enigmatic selections that, to the reader as well as to other characters, are part of his strange appeal.

In loving Fran's complexity in spite of myself and what I know of his brutality, I find myself negotiating the same difficult path as Dan, who somehow has to forge a future for himself away from his father's shadow, something both crucial and impossible. The scene where Dan is beaten and has his laptop stolen against the cacophony of free jazz in an East Village bar is a metaphor for the brutal chaos in which he is forced to exist, as is the way he later gets it back. If he can't escape his father's influence, you sense he would find it difficult to survive without it also. There's something of the world about Fran: taking him out of the world doesn't make its complexities go away.

A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better is a work dressed up as a dark thriller that really denies easy categorisation, much like Fran's character.

Osees - Off Course (Deathgod Corp.)

It's hard to overstate my feelings about Osees, John Dwyer's musical vehicle that's been churning out great tunes since the late 1990s and barely threatened any periods of inactivity ever since. Even when Dwyer switched home from San Francisco to LA, leaving his old line-up behind, there was barely a pause before he turned up with a new one.

Over the last dozen years of so, Osees (currently the preferred variation following Thee Oh Sees and Oh Sees) have shifted from a garage rock sound underpinned by Dwyer's erstwhile collaborator Peter Dammit!'s unique bass sound achieved by using a modified six-string guitar.

If Osees' style since then has become heavy, aided by the double drum attack of Dan Rincon and Paul Quattrone, recently it's veered into something close to freakout territory, a move which these ears have been happy to approve. Off Course is this year's second release, following on the heels of spring's Cara Maluco EP and finds the deepening continuing. I'm playing the title track in my Dandelion show this month, while my FSK show features the extraordinary Hecate's Reflection is a Trick.

The idea of a year with an Osees release always feels wrong. This year we get two. Dive in here.

Zen Baseballbat - There's Nothing Worth Stealing

One of the tracks on Zen Baseballbat's latest album, released earlier this year, is called Destination Normal. I imagine the track carrying an invisible question mark: is the semi-legendary re-formed 'techno reggae and disgruntled rhyme' (to use their own words) band finally heading in the direction of normality after years in the awkward corner of the cult-band backwaters?

ZBB have now dropped the horns that adorned their earlier releases on the Moon Ska label but that doesn't mean they've gone back to their origins as beat-up rude boy/post-punk underclass visionaries. Watching them live (as you should when you get the chance), they're a solid outfit these days, dispatching tight, rhythmic gems that found their way into the recording studio and, inevitably, appear here.

The visionary tag is certainly still well-applied though: Angry Man is a fitting anthem for current times and it's perhaps a measure of how things have gone into an awkward full circle that it might just as easily hearken back to the midst of the punk/oi culture wars (although of course no one called them that back then). The title track brings irony off the bench before the colours are firmly nailed to the mast in The Curse of Capitalism before returning as a laid-back reprise in the album-closer Caught Stealing.

Destination normal? Nah, they come across as a band still soaked in influences of yore who've been liberated by their experiences to end up somewhere like that hinterland where it all started. If a wish of those afflicted by the curse of middle age is 'I wish I'd known then what I know now', There's Nothing Worth Stealing is the work of band who are able to take that knowledge, return to their former stamping ground and put it to good, if thankfully not conventional, use.

Get it here.

Dubmission

It's becoming rare nowadays that I don't play a Dubmission release in one of my monthly shows. There are two obvious reasons for that: they put out a lot of stuff and that stuff is invariably worth checking out.

This year alone the London-based label has already brought us Makyo's wonderful rendition of Talisman's Things Ah Get Tuff, Ashtech's Walkin' Dubs and Drew Id's Interstellar Dub. Last year they brought us the marvellous Freqs in Flux anthology from Pitch Black and Alpha & Omega's Only Jah Children, among a whole load of great releases you can find at their bandcamp site.

In my Dandelion Radio show this month, I'm playing the International Observer remix of Isaac Chambers and Dub Princess's Let Me In, a monster of a track that first saw the light of day a few years back and is more than worthy of a reissue, especially as the release not only includes the featured track but an excellent Deep Fried Dub mix.

All of which is just scratching the top of the iceberg. Dubmission aren't just worth checking out in themselves: they open the door to a massive range of essential dub releases.