netlabel

I will start the march overview with Dubophonic netlabel which deigned us with 2 releases. The first one is Sunjaman with EP “Outta Here” and the second one is Red Star Martyrs & Dubophonic All Stars. Sunjaman is a producer from Greece living in Athens, who serves us a mixture of jungle, steppers and rootstep styles – everything in a dub sauce. However, Red Star Martyrs alongside Dubophonic All Stars interested me much more. They created a relaxing music full of chill-out, on the album you can hear some musicians i.a. from Jamaica. Every composition is a different story, although there are various versions of the same tracks. The saxophone section in “Spanish Town Tea” gets us to the far orient and the “Te Espanol” with the acoustic guitar and tough bass gives an uncommon, positive effect.

Another netlabel with two releases is Dubkey, both of them straight from UK. The first one is Unitone Soundimentional. For unitune it’s the first album released on a netlabel and the music on it is a solid dub roller with roots and steppers. Hits like “Chatty Mouth” sung by Zebby Blax could surely rule on sound systems, also the “What You Gunna Say” sung by Hatta Benji deserves a huge applause. To be honest, the whole album can without doubt appear on playlists all over the world. I Wish Unitone to release more often or release something on vinyl. As an encouragement you should see video clip to “Let Jah Be Your Guide” by Sis Dinah.

The second album is “Babylon Institution” produced by Ashley, an old trouper if it’s up to netlabels. He offers us a trip in climates close to Scientist or Roots Radics – the instrumental dub. Truly amazing music and the admiration of the fact that he creates it all alone force us to listen to this artwork.

March has been successful for netlabel releases – album “Evening News in dub” from netlabel Dubbhism proves it. From the very beginning we are attacked by an element hard to tame: ska, rocksteady and roots reggae straight from Holland with a lot of dub. Nice vocals and marvelous winds are decoration of 5 tunes, plus an well exposed bass – what more could you want!!! It’s my favorite netlabel release this year, although  i am not a big fan of ska, that album took my heart.

On the end i left ODG netlabel and album Mayd Hubb vs Full Dub – french crews known to the wide audience. It contains 6 tracks that are a quintessence of French dub – experimental, specific approach to the dub music, which has a lot of fans.

 

Here you have the links to all of the releases, so there is nothing else that wish you nice listening!!!

http://dubophonic.blogspot.com/2014/03/dph012-sunjaman-outta-here-ep.html

http://dubophonic.blogspot.com/2014/03/dph013-red-star-martyrs-vs-dubophonic.html

http://dubkey.com/dubkey015.html

http://dubkey.com/dubkey016.html

http://www.dubbhism.com/2014/03/out-now-evening-news-in-dub.html

http://odgprod.com/2014/03/mayd-hubb-full-dub/

That’s right – it’s been a long time since the last netlabel report, but it’s past now – we are back with this insightful cycle.

I track on-going netlabel freshies and to be honest the album I am going to write about is on such a high level, that it could be released on CD or vinyl. I am talking about Koncrete Dub – Dub Ina Midlands from Dubophonic netlabel. Only one man – Thomas Kenney from Leicestershire in East Midlands in England – is responsible for this project. He has been producing music since he’s been a teenager – first hiphop and grime, to move on to dub. Style of Koncrete Roots could be described as deep rootical dub conjoined with steppers and electro dub with its own original style – especially visible when he uses classic reggae themes. The opening tune wins my heart with a great prelude and the bass playing Sleng Teng rhythm. “River Jordan” calmly leads us to “Sound Killah”| – a good steppers, to destroy the system in “Inity Step”.

http://dubophonic.blogspot.com/

The next release is ART – X Toy Story from Original Dub Gathering netlabel. Generally, all of their releases are very good. It’s the same this time – Art X is a member of OnDubGround crew, who is responsible i.a. for playing on melodica. Listening, how easy he plays sounds there is no wonder that artists like Brain Damage made their tunes available for him. That tune is amazing for me and it’s just a matter of time for Art X to start appearing on many releases (not only netlabel ones). Besides the great Radical Plan version we also have tunes from groups connected to ODG label like Dawa HiFi or Panda Dub – discovery of the previous year for many. With such a beautiful melodica like that there is no time to write – the only thing to do is to listen to these gorgeous sounds. 

 http://odgprod.com/2014/01/art-x-toy-story-various/

Thus we have our netlabel report back on dubmassive.org. All that’s left is to wait to see what February is going to bring in the virtual world of dub music.