VARIOUS – Life Between Islands – Soundsystem Culture: Black Musical Expression In The UK 1973-2006 – 3LP – Vinyl

LABEL: Soul Jazz

CAT NO: SJRLP507

BARCODE: 5026328005072

Tracklisting:

1. Black Slate Sticks Man
2. Dee Sharp Rising To The Top
3. Asher Senator One Bible
4. Cymande Fug
5. Digital Mystikz Misty Winter
6. Winston Curtis Be Thankful For What Youve Got
7. Trevor Hartley It Must Be Love
8. Shut Up and Dance featuring The Ragga Twins Java Bass
9. Brown Sugar Black Pride
10. The Terrorist RK1
11. Black Harmony Dont Let It Go To Your Head
12. Pebbles Positive Vibrations
13. The Ragga Twins Ragga Trip
14. Janet Kay and Alton Ellis Still In Love
15. Funk Masters Love Money
16. Cosmic Idren Compelled
17. Harry Beckett No Time For Hello
18. Sandra Reid Ooh Boy
19. Tabby Cat Kelly Dont Call Us Immigrants
20. Brown Sugar Im In Love With A Dreadlocks

VARIOUS ARTISTS Life Between Islands
Soundsystem Culture:
Black Musical Expression In The UK 1973-2006

3LP Heavyweight Black Vinyl
(Includes download code.)

Soul Jazz Records new Life Between Islands collection coincides with the launch of Tate Britains exhibition of the same name. This landmark exhibition explores the links between Caribbean and British art and culture from the 1950s to now.

Soul Jazz Records album, sub-titled Soundsystem Culture Black Musical Expression 1973-2006, focuses on the most important Black British musical styles to emerge out of the distinctly Caribbean world of sound systems. The album features an all-star line-up including Dennis Bovell, Shut Up and Dance, Cymande, Digital Mystikz, Brown Sugar, Funk Masters, Janet Kay, Ragga Twins and more.

The album is a lightning-rod journey across Roots Reggae, Jungle/Drum & Bass, Jazz-Funk, Lovers Rock, Jazz, Dubstep and more. Much of Soul Jazz Records catalogue comes out of these genres and this album is partly an overview of some of Soul Jazzs earlier releases (including Digital Mystikz long-deleted groundbreaking and now highly-collectible single, Misty Winter) alongside some choice rare and classic tunes that span over 30 years of sound system culture.

Many of the tracks represent how Black British artists defined their own identity with songs such as Brown Sugars righteous Black Pride, Im In Love with A Dreadlocks and Tabby Cat Kellys powerful Dont Call Us Immigrants. Aside from being musically rooted in the distinctly Jamaican-born phenomenon of the sound system, much of this identity is also shaped by the triangular relationship of being British-born, of Caribbean heritage, and with an equal love of African-American Jazz, Funk and Soul, as evidenced with many Lovers Rock tunes reggae covers of American soul tunes (such as those of Jean Carn, William de Vaughan and Rose Royce featured here). This stateside influence can also be heard in groups such as the Funk Masters, a group formed by reggae radio DJ Tony Williams, whose jazz-funk music successfully crossed over into New Yorks clubland, as well as the great Cymande, whose unique street-funk became staple material for numerous US hip-hop artists in the years that followed.

In the early 1990s, jungle and drum and bass artists took the essence of reggaes soundsystem culture MCs, dubplates, crews and applied them to their own music, applying heavy reggae bass lines to intense double-speed drum breakbeats. At the forefront of this new movement were the duo Shut Up and Dance, working closely with The Ragga Twins, aka Deman Rocker and Flinty Badman, both MCs for North Londons infamous Unity reggae soundsytem. In the early 2000s, dubstep, spearheaded by Digital Mystikz, became the latest instalment in this ever-evolving soundsystem culture.

Soul Jazz Records Life Between Islands shows how these many styles are interconnected. The album comes as a heavyweight triple vinyl (+ download), deluxe double CD with slipcase and digital release. Lloyd Bradley (author of the classic book on reggae Bass Culture, and Sounds Like London), provides the excellent sleevenotes, which are also accompanied with exclusive and striking photography.

There is probably no better or more appropriate way to celebrate the Tate Britains exhibition, Between the Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s Now, than with an accompanying compilation album. As with the art itself, music has all the possibilities to reflect its surroundings through an array of lenses limited only by the creators imagination. Hence this astutely conceived and compiled soundtrack is as beautiful and as varied as the art itself, offering stories of immigration and settlement that can exist without filters or outside interference, providing a vivid snapshot of one of the cornerstones of black British culture.- Lloyd Bradley

Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s-Now is at Tate Britain 1 Dec 2021 until 3 April 2022.

See below for tracklisting