MixTO Festival w/ Orbital Ensemble @ Trillium Park, Saturday

Orbital Ensemble's 7 pm set at Trillium Park today will be a highlight of the MixTO Festival which runs from 4 pm to 11 pm.

For more information about this weekend's MixTO Festival, visit their site. Watch a clip of Orbital Ensemble in action here.

RIP reggae archivist, writer & champion Steve Barrow, 1945-2026

Sadly Steve Barrow, co-founder of archival reggae label Blood & Fire, has passed away. He'll be greatly missed. 

One of the best friends roots reggae and dub ever had, Steve Barrow was a record collector, writer and DJ who ran the Daddy Kool record shop selling Jamaican music in London's Soho district starting in 1975. Building an impressive vinyl collection while amassing a deep knowledge of the breadth of Jamaica's vast musical exports, Barrow lent his expertise to Trojan and Island where he assembled crucial compilations of important overlooked recordings before co-founding the influential Blood & Fire archival label in 1993. 

Barrow and his Blood & Fire crew helped kick-start the 90s resurgence of interest in dub by releasing an unbroken string of brilliant collections, showcasing well-chosen gems from King Tubby, Keith Hudson, Horace Andy, Yabby You, Glen Brown, The Congos, and others in tastefully designed packages that were always informatively annotated and drawn from the best available sources with a portion of the proceeds going to artists/producers responsible. The superior quality of Blood & Fire's output forced more established labels to rethink how archival compilations were done. Suddenly, it was no longer sufficient to knock out bootleg quality comps with a slap-dash sleeves, sans accompanying notes and session credits – everyone had to raise their game. 

Steve Barrow was also the co-author (with Peter Dalton) of The Rough Guide To Reggae Music, the first authoritative and comprehensive reggae guide covering the entire history of the music and related subgenres as well as providing insightful profiles of key players. Rest in power Steve, you'll be greatly missed. Check out a few interviews with Steve and a few of his boffo collections. 

 

Khruangbin release Hasta El Cielo – a dub version of Con Todo El Mundo

Hasta El Cielo is available now on limited-edition yellow wax with a bonus 7" single with two additional Scientist dub mixes.

Globetrotting Texan trio Khruangbin have just released Hasta El Cielo, the band’s dub version of their acclaimed second album Con Todo El Mundo via Dead Oceans/Night Time Stories. The full album has been processed anew along with two bonus dubs by renowned Jamaican producer Scientist. Check out the lead single, “Mary Always,” below. Get a copy of Hasta El Cielo right here.



The band’s exotic, spacious, psychedelic funk aligns with the dub treatment particularly well. Indeed, keen fans won’t find this a surprising release. Dubs of tracks from their first album The Universe Smiles Upon You appeared on limited vinyl releases of “People Everywhere” for Record Store Day 2016 and “Zionsville” on the BoogieFuturo remix 12”.

“For us, Dub has always felt like a prayer. Spacious, meditative, able to transport the listener to another realm. The first dub albums we listened to were records mixed by Scientist featuring the music of the Roots Radics. Laura Lee learned to play bass by listening to Scientist Wins the World Cup. His unique mixing style, with the emphasis on space and texture, creates the feeling of frozen time; it was hugely influential to us as a band. To be able to work alongside Scientist, a legend in the history of dub, is an honor. This is our dub version of Con Todo El Mundo.” — Khruangbin

Khruangbin Tour Dates:
Wed. July 17 – Athens, GR @ Ejekt Festival
Thu. July 18 – Bern, CH @ Gurten Festival
Fri. July 19 – Suffolk, UK @ Latitude Festival
Sun. July 21 – Chicago, IL @ Pitchfork Music Festival
Sun. July 28 – Fuji, JP @ Fuji Rocks
Wed. July 31 – Honolulu, HI @ The Republik
Fri. Aug. 2 – Sun. Aug. 4 – Happy Valley, OR @ Pickathon
Sun. Aug. 4 – Kaslo, BC @ Kaslo Jazz Festival
Fri. Aug. 9 – Gothenburg, SE @ Way Out Fest Festival
Thu. Aug. 8 – Sat. Aug. 10 – Rees, DE @ Haldern Pop Festival
Sun. Aug. 11 – Helsinki, FI @ Flow Festival
Tue. Aug. 13 – Budapest, HU @ Sziget Festival
Thu. Aug. 15 – Paredes de Coura, PT @ Paredes de Coura Festival
Thu. Aug. 15 – Sun. Aug. 18 – Brecon Beacons, UK @ Green Man Festival
Thu. Aug. 22 – Sun. Aug. 25 – Arrington, VA @ Lockn’
Fri. Aug. 23 – Miami, FL @ The Ground (DJ Set)
Sat. Aug. 24 – Sun. Aug. 25 – Port Townsend, WA @ THING
Fri. Nov. 15 – São Paulo, BR @ Popload Festival

Early Scientist dub recordings excavated

Who exactly didn't want you to hear this dubwise companion to Flick Wilson's School Days album isn't exactly clear – well, apart from the Scientist himself maybe – but the long unavailable Scientist sides created at King Tubby's Dromilly Road studio are well worth investigating for dub fans keen on tracing back the source of Hopeton Brown's mixing style.

The technically astute Brown, who developed his rep as a first class engineer while building transformers for King Tubby 4-track operation, would eventually find fame as a innovative mixer during the dancehall peak of the early 80s after he moved to Channel One and began working with Junjo Lawes and the Roots Radics. 

What we have on The Dub Album They Didn't Want You To Hear! (DKR) is an altogether more rudimentary roots-oriented selection which shows the Scientist's debt to King Tubby and Bunny Lee rather than the next-level sonic trickery for which he would later become known with albums like Scientist Meets The Space Invaders, Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires, Scientist Encounters Pac-Man, etc. The 10 track LP, with nine Flick Wilson dubs and one from Wayne Jarrett's What's Wrong with the Youths, still makes for an enjoyable listen. 

Those with a taste for Scientist's earlier classics like Introducing Scientist: The Best Dub Album in the World, Heavyweight Dub Champion and Showdown At King Tubby's will find lots to like on this newly uncovered artifact but those expecting some mind-blowing revelation may be setting themselves up for disappointment. Have a listen below.