Dub music

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Dub is an electronic musical style that grew out of reggae in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is commonly considered a subgenre of reggae, though it has developed to extend beyond that style.[1] Generally, dub consists of remixes of existing recordings[2] created by significantly manipulating the original, usually through the removal of vocal parts, emphasis of the rhythm section (the stripped-down drum-and-bass track is sometimes referred to as a riddim), the application of studio effects such as echo and reverb, and the occasional dubbing of vocal or instrumental snippets from the original version or other works.[3]

Dub was pioneered by recording engineers and producers such as Osbourne "King Tubby" Ruddock, Hopeton "Scientist" Brown, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Errol Thompson and others[1] beginning in the late 1960s. Augustus Pablo, who collaborated with many of these producers, is credited with bringing the distinct-sounding melodica to dub, and is also among the pioneers and creators of the genre. Similar experiments with recordings at the mixing desk outside the dancehall scene were also done by producers Clive Chin and Herman Chin Loy.[4] These producers, especially Ruddock and Perry, looked upon the mixing console as an instrument, manipulating tracks to come up with something new and different. The Roland Space Echo was widely used by dub producers in the 1970s to produce echo and delay effects.[5]

Dub has influenced many genres of music, including

jungle and drum and bass, as well as a major influence on dubstep, with its orientation around bass and utilization of audio effects.[10][11][12] Traditional dub has survived, and some of the originators such as Mad Professor
continue to produce new material.

Name

The use of the word dub in a recording context originated in the late 1920s with the advent of "talking pictures" and referred to adding a soundtrack to a film; it is an informal abbreviation of the word double. Over the next 40 years or so the term found its way into audio recording in general, often in the context of making a copy of a recording on another tape or disc.

It was in this sense that the term was first used in the Jamaican recording industry: new recordings were often initially copied onto one-off acetate discs, known colloquially as soft wax[13] or dub and later as dubplates, for exclusive use by sound system operators; playing a song as an exclusive recording on a sound system was a good way for a producer to test the potential popularity of a recording before committing to the pressing of hundreds or thousands of copies of singles for retail sale. Initially, these acetates would simply be the standard recording of a song that was yet to be released on a single; around 1968-69, however, they started to be exclusive mixes with some or all of the vocal mixed out. Producer Bunny Lee notes:

"Yeah...it was really VERSION those days - it wasn't dub yet beca' it was jus' the riddim. One day an incident: Ruddy's (sound system operator Ruddy Redwood) was cutting dub, an when it start, Smithy (recording engineer Byron Smith) look like 'im start bring on the voice and Ruddy's say: no, mek it run and 'im take the whole backing track off it. 'Im say, alright, run it again, and put in the voice. 'Im didn't do no more like that yet."

After describing how Redwood then had his deejay first play the vocal version and then the instrumental version at a dance, and how popular this novelty was, Lee continued:

"The next day now, 'im start it and just bring in the riddim. Or...down in the tune, bring a little voice and drop it out again...yes. Ruddy use to handle that part himself, drop in the voice and drop it out. All Smithy do was cut the dub..."[13]

Jamaican soundsystems had always sought exclusive recordings from their origins in the late 1940s. However, when they played American rhythm & blues records through the 1950s, these were simply records that rival sound system operators didn't have and couldn't identify. This progressed from the late 1950s onwards via having local musicians record a song exclusively for play on a particular sound system to having exclusive mixes of a song on acetate, which became possible with the arrival of multi-track recording in Jamaica. From the concept of a version with some or all of the vocal mixed out dubbed to acetate, the novelty-hungry sound system scene rapidly drove the evolution of increasingly creative mixes in the first few years of the 1970s. Within a few years the term dub became attached to these regardless of whether they were on an exclusive acetate or "dubplate". As the use of the term widened and evolved,

drums and bass.[14]

It is possible that the existing use of the word dub for other meanings in Jamaica around the time of the music's origin may have helped to cement its use in the musical context. The most frequent meanings referred to either a form of erotic dance or sexual intercourse;[15] such usage is frequently present in names of reggae songs, for instance, of The Silvertones' "Dub the Pum Pum" (where pum pum is Jamaican slang for female genitalia), Big Joe and Fay's "Dub a Dawta" (dawta is Jamaican patois for daughter). I-Roy's "Sister Maggie Breast" features several references on sex:

I man a-dub it on the side

Say little sister you can run but you can't hide
Slip you got to slide you got to open your crotches wide

Peace and love abide

However, all three of these songs were recorded after the use of dub for a style of remixing was already prevalent.

Characteristics

Dub music is characterized by a "version" or "double"

sound effects such as echo, reverb, with instruments and vocals dropping in and out of the mix. The partial or total removal of vocals and other instruments tends to emphasise the bass guitar. The music sometimes features other noises, such as birds singing, thunder and lightning, water flowing, and producers shouting instructions at the musicians. It can be further augmented by live DJs. The many-layered sounds with varying echoes and volumes are often said to create soundscapes, or sound sculptures, drawing attention to the shape and depth of the space between sounds as well as to the sounds themselves. There is usually a distinctly organic feel to the music, even though the effects are electronically created.[16][18]

Often these tracks are used for "

selector
" (sometimes referred to as the DJ in other genres).

A major reason for producing multiple versions was economic; a

LPs of dub tracks began to be produced; these could be, variously: a collection of new dub mixes of riddims previously used on various singles, usually by a single producer; the dub version of an existing vocal LP with dub mixes of all the tracks; or, least commonly, a selection of previously unissued original riddims mixed in a dub style.[citation needed
]

History

Lee "Scratch" Perry was an early pioneer of the genre

Dub music and

DJs, including Duke Reid and Prince Buster among others, were toasting over instrumental versions of reggae and developing instrumental reggae music.[20]

"Versions" and experiments with studio mixing (Late 1960s)

In 1968, Kingston, Jamaica sound system operator

B-side of records.[23]

At Studio One the initial motivation to experiment with instrumental tracks and studio mixing was correcting the riddim until it had a "feel," so a singer, for instance, could comfortably sing over it.[22]

Another reason to experiment with mixing was rivalry among sound systems. Sound systems' sound men wanted the tracks they played at

dances to be slightly different each time, so they would order numerous copies of the same record from a studio, each with a different mix.[24]

Evolution of dub as a subgenre (1970s)

By 1973, through the efforts of several independent and competitive innovators, engineers, and producers, instrumental reggae "versions" from various studios had evolved into "dub" as a subgenre of reggae.

The innovative album The Undertaker by Derrick Harriott and the Crystallites, engineered by Errol Thompson and with "Sound Effects" credited to Derrick Harriott, was one of the first strictly instrumental reggae albums on its release in 1970.

In 1973, at least three producers, Lee "Scratch" Perry and the Aquarius studio engineer/producer team of Herman Chin Loy and Errol Thompson simultaneously recognized that there was an active market for this new "dub" sound and consequently they started to release the first albums strictly consisting of dub. In the spring of 1973, Lee "Scratch" Perry released Upsetters 14 Dub Blackboard Jungle, mixed in collaboration with King Tubby and more commonly known as "Blackboard Jungle Dub". It is considered a landmark recording of this genre.[25]

In 1974, Keith Hudson released his classic Pick a Dub, widely considered to have been the first deliberately thematic dub album, with tracks specifically mixed in the dub style for the purpose of appearing together on an LP, and King Tubby released his two debut albums At the Grass Roots of Dub and Surrounded by the Dreads at the National Arena.

Dub history (Early 1980s–present)

Dub has continued to evolve, its popularity waxing and waning with changes in musical fashion. Almost all reggae singles still carry an instrumental version on the B-side and these are still used by the sound systems as a blank canvas for live singers and DJs.

In 1986, the Japanese band Mute Beat would create dub music using live instruments such as trumpets rather than studio equipment, and became a precursor to club music.[26]

In the 1980s, the

Present Arms In Dub
album being the first dub album to hit the UK top 40.

Side by side with reggae at this time (early 1980s) running B side dub mixes, a rising number of American (mostly New York state and New Jersey-based)

The Peech Boys' "Don't Make Me Wait", Toney Lee's "Reach Up", and artists mostly on New York City labels Prelude or West End
. In the aforementioned mixes the beat of the record was accentuated, "unnecessary" vocal parts dropped, and other DJ-friendly features making it easy to work with, like picking out key sections to play over other records, heightening the dancefloor effect.

Contemporary instances are also called "dubtronica", "dub-techno", "steppers" or electronic music influenced by dub music.[27]

Musical impact

Influence of dub

Yale professor Michael Veal described dub as "the sound of a society tearing itself apart at the seams". His book, "Starship Africa", says that the African diaspora is reflected in dub by the "extensive use of reverberation/delay devices and the fragmentation of the song surface" – he considers dub's use of reverb a "sonic metaphor for the condition of diaspora." Veal wrote that dub creators used echo and reverb to elicit memories of African culture in their listeners.[28] King Tubby, Lee Perry, Eroll Thompson, Mad Professor, Jah Shaka, Denis Bovell and Linton Kwesi Johnson influenced rock musicians. From the 1980s forward, dub has been influenced by, and has in turn influenced,

and others demonstrate clear dub influences in their respective genres, and their innovations have in turn influenced the mainstream of the dub genre.

In 1987, US grunge rock band

Omar Rodriguez and other members, recorded a series of dub albums under the name De Facto
since 1999.

Influence of dub on punk and rock music

Since the inception of dub in the late 1960s, its history has been intertwined with that of the

B-sides featuring dub influences on their Everything in Time B-sides album. Some controversy still exists on whether pop-ska bands like No Doubt can regard themselves as a part of dub lineage. Other bands followed in the footsteps of No Doubt, fusing pop-ska and dub influences, such as Save Ferris
and Vincent.

There are also some British punk bands creating dub music. Capdown released their Civil Disobedients album, featuring the track "Dub No. 1", while Sonic Boom Six and The King Blues take heavy influences from dub, mixing the genre with original punk ethics and attitudes. The post-punk band Public Image Ltd, fronted by John Lydon, formerly of Sex Pistols, often use dub and reggae influenced bass lines in their music, especially in their earlier music through various bassists who were members of the group, such as Jah Wobble and Jonas Hellborg. Their track "Rise", which reached #11 in the UK Chart in 1986 uses a dub/reggae influenced bass line.

The British post-punk band Bauhaus were highly influenced by dub music, so far that Bauhaus' bass player, David J mentioned that their signature song, Bela Lugosi's Dead, "was our interpretation of dub".[34][35][36]

Shoegaze bands such as Ride with their song "King Bullshit" and the intro to "Time Machine" have explored and experimented with dub. Slowdive also penned "Souvlaki Space Station" and their instrumental "Moussaka Chaos" as a testimony of dub influence, while the Kitchens of Distinction released "Anvil Dub".

Steve Hogarth, singer with British rock band Marillion, acknowledged the influence of dub on their 2001 album Anoraknophobia.[37]

Doom Metal outfit OM has gone on record regarding the influence of Reggae and Dub on his bass playing style.[38]

21st-century dub

Traditional dub has survived, and some of the originators of dub such as

Twilight Circus
project. In 2022 was released Sly & Robbie vs. Roots Radics "The Dub Battle" produced by the Argentine artist and dub engineer Hernan "Don Camel" Sforzini, this work is the first to reunite all the legends of dub in one album dubbing the entire "The Final Battle" album, Grammy nominated in 2019. This album includes the last dubs produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry and Bunny "Striker" Lee, also dub versions produced by King Jammy, Mad Professor, Dennis Bovell, Don Camel and two unreleased dub versions of King Tubby.
[39]

Afrofuturism and Diaspora

Dub music is in conversation with the cultural aesthetic of Afrofuturism. Having emerged from Jamaica, this genre is regarded as the product of diaspora peoples, whose culture reflects the experience of dislocation, alienation and remembrance. Through the creation of space-filling soundscapes, faded echoes, and repetition within musical tracks, Dub artists are able to tap into such Afrofuturist concepts as the nonlinearity of time and the projection of past sounds into an unknown future space. In a 1982 essay,[40] Luke Ehrlich describes Dub through this particular scope:

With dub, Jamaican music spaced out completely. If reggae is Africa in the New World, then dub must be Africa on the moon; it's the psychedelic music I expected to hear in the '60s and didn't. The bass and drums conjure up a dark, vast space, a musical portrait of outer space, with sounds suspended like glowing planets or the fragments of instruments careening by, leaving trails like comets and meteors. Dub is a kaleidoscopic musical montage which takes sounds originally intended as interlocking parts of another arrangement and using them as raw material, converts them into new and different sounds; then, in its own rhythm and format, it continually reshuffles these new sounds into unusual juxtapositions.

At the same time, dub music's role in the Black musical canon marks a theme of the diaspora the music was birthed from. Due to the sonic structure of echoes and reverberations, dub can create a dream-like world symbolizing the generational trauma of African diaspora as a result of slavery.[41] This understanding of dub gives it the power to take on the darker emotions related to the diaspora, including violence. In King Tubby's dub mixes, one can hear sonic elements of screeching tires, gun fire, and police sirens.[42] Artist Arthur Jafa said this about dub music and the diaspora in 1994 during a keynote address at the Organization of Black Designers Conference:[42]

those group experiences that reconfigure who we [African Americans] are as a community. One of the critical primal sites would be the Middle Passage. If you understand the level of horror directed towards a group of people, then you start getting some sense of the magnitude, impact, and level of trauma that that had on the African American community, and how it was particularly one of the earliest group experiences that reshaped an "African psyche" into the beginning of an African American psyche. . . . Now, for example, you look at Black music and see certain structural things that really are about reclaiming this whole sense of absence, loss, not knowing. One of the things I'm thinking about is dub music . . . it ends up really speaking about common experiences because the structure of the music is about things dropping out and coming back in, really reclaiming this whole sense of loss, rupture, and repair that is very common across the experience of black people in the diaspora.

William Gibson frequently mentions dub in the 1984 science fiction novel Neuromancer.

As they worked, Case gradually became aware of the music that pulsed constantly through the cluster. It was called dub, a sensuous mosaic cooked from vast libraries of digitalized pop; it was worship, Molly said, and a sense of community. Case heaved at one of the yellow sheets; the thing was light but still awkward. Zion smelled of cooked vegetables, humanity, and ganja.

"We monitor many frequencies. We listen always. Came a voice, out of the babel of tongues, speaking to us. It played us a mighty dub."

Jamaican Sound System

The most straightforward explanation of the Jamaican sound system would be an individual who deals with a mechanical system consisting of musical amplification and diffusion. This would include turntables, speakers, and a PA system. In this system the deejay is the person who speaks over the record. This is not to be confused with the American term DJ, which refers to the one in charge of selecting the tracks at an event with music. This role is known as the selector in the sound system dub culture, who also plays a vital role in the system, especially in Jamaican dancehalls.

The sound system has had a prevalent spot in music production in Jamaica for well over 60 years. The true importance and relationship between the sound system and dub music can be found in the dubbed out versions of sounds that became the source of Dub music. These dubbed out versions of songs consisted of the original track, without the vocals. Through

deejay
. These remixes or versions would not have been possible without the Jamaican sound system and its progression over the years.

At the heart of reggae and Jamaican culture lies the sound system. In the early 1950s the sound system consisted of a

turntable, amplifier, and pair of speakers. In the 21st century they have become larger scale productions[citation needed
]

At the time Jamaica gained independence from Britain in 1962, the culture was in flux, and the country was experiencing a form of identity crisis. Throughout the 40's and 50's Jamaican audiences had come to favor American R&B records over locally produced music. Jamaican sound system culture and dub music helped cement Jamaican musical forms into Jamaican national cultural identity in this critical time in the nation's development.[43]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican reggae, p.2
  2. )
  3. ^ Michael Veal (2013), Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae, pages 26-44, "Electronic Music in Jamaica", Wesleyan University Press
  4. .
  5. ^ a b Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican reggae, p.3
  6. ^ Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican reggae, p.4
  7. ^ a b c d Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican reggae, p.1
  8. ^ Roy Shuker (2012), Popular Music Culture: The Key Concepts, pages 117-118, Routledge
  9. ^ Living through pop, p.107
  10. ^ Discographies: dance music, culture and the politics of sound, p.79
  11. ^ Multi-Ethnic Britain 2000+: New Perspectives in Literature, Film and the Arts, p. 263
  12. ^ a b Steve Barrow, sleeve notes of "Dub Gone Crazy", Blood And Fire Records, BAFCD 002, February 1994
  13. ^ Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican reggae, p.62
  14. ^ Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican reggae, p.61
  15. ^ .
  16. ^ Brewster, Bill (1999). Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey. London: Headline Book Publishing. p. 100.
  17. .
  18. ^ Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican reggae
  19. ^ Cut 'n' mix: culture, identity, and Caribbean music, p.83
  20. ^ Dacks, David (2007). "Dub Voyage". Exclaim! Magazine. Archived from the original on 2007-10-13. Retrieved 2007-09-18.
  21. ^ a b c Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican reggae, p.52
  22. ^ Caribbean popular music: an encyclopedia of reggae, mento, ska, rock steady, p.94
  23. ^ Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican reggae, p.53
  24. ^ David Katz, sleeve notes of Auralux reissue of Upsetters 14 Dub Blackboard Jungle, 2004
  25. ^ Greg Prato. "In Dub - Mute Beat | Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards". AllMusic. Retrieved 2014-05-20.
  26. ^ Doherty, Greg (2003) "Strange Bedfellows: Brits like Groove Corporation refile dub under electronica Archived 2014-08-08 at the Wayback Machine", Miami New Times, 14 August 2003, retrieved 8 November 2009
  27. .
  28. ^ BBC Culture Club Dub Retrieved 31 March 2021
  29. Pitchfork Media
    . Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  30. ^ Louder Killing Joke: In Dub review Retrieved 13 September 2021
  31. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "AllMusic Screaming Life/Fopp Review". AllMusic. Retrieved 20 May 2009.
  32. ^ "With Life Won't Wait, Rancid nearly made good on its Clash-inspired promise". The A.V. Club. 20 January 2015.
  33. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "40 Years of Bauhaus - An Interview with David J". YouTube. Post-Punk.com. Retrieved 12 January 2021. David J: "We were very influenced by reggae, especially dub. I mean, basically Bela was our interpretation of dub."
  34. ^ "Bauhaus invent goth | Music". The Guardian. 2014-03-13. Retrieved 2016-10-14.
  35. All Media Guide. Archived from the original on 26 November 2012. From those basics, 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' crackles in on percussion alone, a tapping, rattling rhythm into which a three-note bass line only gradually intrudes itself before Ash
    's treated guitar slides in, echoed and echoing the most atmospheric dub.
  36. ^ "Marillion fans to the rescue". BBC News. 2001-05-11.
  37. ^ "Al Cisneros (Sleep/OM): "When I'm stoned it's readily apparent whether a rhythm has a shelf-life or not"". musicradar.com. 2019-09-11.
  38. ^ "Sly & Robbie vs Roots Radics comparten the Dub Battle".
  39. ^ Ehrlich, Luke. "X-Ray Music: The Volatile History of Dub", in Reggae Interventional, ed. Stephen Davis and Peter Simon. New York: R and B Books, 1982, 104
  40. ^ Gilroy, Paul. 1993. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
  41. ^ a b Veal, M., 2007. Dub: songscapes and shattered Songs in Jamaican reggae. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
  42. ^ "The Sound System". Debate.uvm.edu. 1998-02-17. Retrieved 2014-05-20.

Further reading

External links