Bush Chemists – Raw Raw Dub (ROIR)
Reviewed by Sadie O., 10/31/05
Fine and funky urban (London) dub with plenty of reverb and electronica, hard edged without losing sight of its roots. Eminently listenable, often danceable. You can put on pretty much any track, and leave it on as long as you want – it sounds enough the same throughout that nothing stands out over much, and yet there’s enough variety within and amongst songs that it doesn’t get boring. Good, good sounds.
No FCCs (vocals very occasional and blippy).
1. Starts with beeps, slow echo-laden groove with lots of noises, vocal squoops. Melodica wafting around.
2. **Echoes bouncing from channel to channel – too bad I’m not on acid! Mid tempo, militant beat. Mostly drums.
3. starts with talking, then horns and handdrums in front of mix, nice full-bodied midtempo dance groove. Quiets down to handdrums and flute, then synth and bass.
4. freaky bass, almost a jungle beat, noise and reverb.
5. **sweetly mysterious. Nice syncopation, rather relaxing.
6. some tweeting/chiming stuff, song structure evident despite spaciness.
7. melodica and militant beat. Ends abruptly.
8. **keyboard with a bit of effects, very song-oriented.
9. somewhat uptempo, energetic, almost martial, but the melodica softens the edges.
10. **some LOUD crashes, fast beat, all about the drum machine. Lots of rubbery, reverby stuff.
11. Rather downtempo, but so much reverb on the beats that it almost sounds jungle. All bass ‘n’ (syn)drum.
12. **Starts out pure electronica at the low end of the scale, with a few bleeps. Militant drumbeat. Ganja-fied!
13. Vocals! Asking Jah to “lift me higher”.
14. All about drum machine.
15. **Keyboards ‘n’ effects/drums ‘n’ effects. Definitely spacey, fun.