Search - Lee Perry :: Baffling Smoke Signal: Upsetter Shop 3

When Lee "Scratch" Perry's Black Ark studios was gutted by fire, it was the Jamaican equivalent of Sun Studio or Motown being incinerated. What music survived was a decidedly mixed bag; perhaps a fitting metaphor for the mysterious, mercurial--some would say half-mad--Perry himself. The dozen tracks here (almost all previously unreleased) hail from Black Ark's 1976 to '78 prime, a fertile period when Perry's studio dub mastery was at its zenith, and had already entrenched him as an influential touchstone amongst pop trend makers on both sides of the Atlantic. Powered by a hypnotic, deceptively laid-back rhythm groove (nicely underscored by an extended remix of Devon Irons's "Ketch Vampire"), Perry's spare production incorporates bluesy, studio-processed guitar heroics ("Full Experience") one moment and jazzy horn flourishes the next. The eight-minute-plus megamix of Hugh Blackwood and Dr. Alimantado's "Reggae Music" explores the farther reaches of Perry's dub treatments, while an outtake of Junior Murvin's glorious "I Was Appointed" is set to another infectiously funky Perry electro-rhythm track. This is an anthology rife with revelations. --Jerry McCulley