Various Artists
Roots of Dub Funk
Tanty Records
**** (of 5)

Who likes dirty, heavy funk? Everyone with a damn brain, that's who. This disc is a great introduction to some of the smoothest upstrokin' tunes around. Sublime be damned! This disc could take your ass and grind it into hamburger at the drop of a beat.

Roots of Dub Funk is a contagious disc full of, well, dub funk. And since I'm nearly completely ignorant in the ways of this type of music, the rest of this review is going to be the technical specs directly from the press release. Make no mistake though, it's about the raddest of it's kind (and reasonably priced to boot!).

FROM THE PRESS RELEASE:

Twelve original tracks. Witness the hardcore Roots Radics style dub of "Return to the Controls"; the Shaka Rumble city madness of "Pure and Clean"; King Jammy's mixing desk-inspired dub of "east of Bacchus Marsh"; as well as the low, low, low bassline workouts on "Hot get Hotter" and "Jah Glory"; the frigged-up break beat-ery on "the Return of Sleng", "Dub of the Sphinx", "Hustlers Choice", "Brn the Dub Down", "Hard Back Youthy", and "City of Angels Dub" and inspiration of the genius Tubby, Santana and Martial Arts in "Natty Dread Kung Fu."

This release will receve support from fans of King Jammy, Shaka, Scientist, King Tubby, Bill Laswell/Axiom, DJ Spooky, Massive Attack, Blood and Fire, Pressure Sounds, Guidance, BSI, Ninja Tune music buyers and from the Hip Hop, Downtempo, Ambient, Breakbeat and the Leftfield Dance Music Faithful.

-Django

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