THE ENTICING THUMP OF "DUB ECHOES"

The latest reggae documentary, was created by Bruno Natal, a young Brazilian music fan. "Dub Echoes" concentrates on how and why "dub"--which involves remixing and revising existing reggae songs--came to be in the 1970s. It looks at the studio experimentation behind the music and the mechanics of crafting it, such as excising vocals, emphasising the bass and drums and adding a hefty amount of reverb and echo. The film drives home the message that with dub the engineer became an artist, transforming songs in unique, rythmic ways, reinventing them as something new.

At a recent screening and DVD launch party in east London, Natal reluctantly admitted that he was turned onto dub reggae after listening to Sublime, a ska-punk trio fronted by a white guy from Long Beach, California. Though Natal sacrificed some cred with this admission, the fact that a guy in Brazil got hip to Jamaican street music by listening to an American band that itself discovered reggae among the vinyl at a college radio station speaks to the music’s global reach.

Natal interviews pioneers such as Lee “Scratch” Perry and Bunny Lee, and then explores a vast arsenal of second- and third-generation dub musicians and producers, including Mad Professor, DJ Spooky, dubstep DJ Kode9, Dub Pistols, Mario Caldato junior (a longtime Beastie Boys producer), Thievery Corporation and Roots Manuva. In this way, "Dub Echoes" traces Jamaican dub's massive influence on hip hop and electronic music.

Some interviews are better than others. The members of Thievery Corporation were hard-pressed to describe exactly how and why their trippy electronic dance music is so heavily influenced by dub reggae (it clearly is). But punchy stories from Don Letts (pictured above), a DJ who is credited with introducing reggae beats to London's punk scene, and David Katz, Lee Perry's biographer, ground the film and drive home Jamaican dub's DIY origins.

In one story, Katz describes how Perry would put microphones inside metal garbage cans to get a more metallic echo effect. In another recording session, when Perry wanted the sound of cows in a song, he had someone hum and blow loudly into a paper towel roll.

The power of dub music is in the inescapable thump of the bass guitar and drums. At the original dub reggae parties, DJs spun records from amplified sound systems; the higher volume of the bass and drums helped draw people to the party.

“Dub is a head trip," explained Don Letts after "It’s instinctive, but hard to visualise. It’s ethereal. But what I always liked about it was that there is enough space in the music to put yourself in the mix.”

Letts and several other DJs then proceeded to spin several hours' worth of heavy, dub reggae to a sweaty, packed house.

"Dub Echoes" has just been released on DVD by Soul Jazz Records.

~GARY MOSKOWITZ

Picture Credit: memespring (via Flickr)