Sound System Dub - Alpha Omega

Advantages: Excellent tracks - no rubbish
Disadvantages: No good if you don't like dance music

...I love dance music so maybe that makes the review seem little bias but where dance albums nowadays seem like 10 a penny, trying to find the ones that are the cream of the crop are becoming rare. So it made a refreshing change when I bough the latest gatecrasher album last week. The gatecrasher series has been on the go for awhile now with albums named after colours last few years (red, blue etc) these too are excellent mix albums. As is the new one GATECRASHER GLOBAL SOUND SYSTEM. A 2cd 140 mins plus excursion of the best sound released/unreleased around. The tunes never stop coming and is one album you will not get bored of. Featuring tracks/remixes by Oliver Lieb (LSG) Bt, Moby, Paul Van Dyk, tracks from Hooj Choons label and Platipus. 33 tracks. The album is on cassette/lp/cd and limited cd and is available on incredible label which... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Fantastic bassline. Original sounds. Good chioce of tracks.
Disadvantages: It's music designed for sound systems. Sound quality suffers.

...’ - another Augustus Pablo experiment gone right. Personally I really enjoy all the tracks on the album, but perhaps putting the dub version as well as the original version for a few tracks is unnecessary as it takes up the valuable space on this compilation CD. Because of the age of the tracks, the sound quality would only be getting half marks, but it’s hardly bad and adds to the atmosphere. I don’t think sound quality is a worthy basis to judge this album on. A little bit of hiss in the background is no bother. All tracks are in stereo. Perhaps because it is seen as a ‘spin off’ from traditional roots reggae, dub is not as popular as it really should be. The genre is limited possibly by the fact that it sounds far, far better when played on a sound system that no I-Pod or home stereo can ever match (unless you got a lot of money... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Hectoring, sometimes profound lyrics, a collision of energetic musical styles
Disadvantages: Some self-righteous lyrical cliches but only some, mind.

...puts them more in the tradition of the Clash or Massive Attack. Guitarist Chandrasonic has an impressive array of classical sitar and punk-influenced riffs and licks, while the rest of the music is nothing less than a survey of all the most interesting advances in British-ethnic music of the last twenty years - from dub reggae and Eastern stylisms, to recent British hip-hop, trip-hop and drum n bass. They are more like an old-style Jamaican sound system than a trad rock band, with live instrumentalists, DJs, a dancer and guest vocalists like Benjamin Zephaniah filling out the sound. On tracks like 'Taa-Deem' it is hard not to think that you are in the presence of a truly fresh sound, something dazzlingly original. On this track specifically, a deceased Indian folk singer's vocal is sampled and placed against a choppy, guitar-driven dub... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful