Brain Damage – Spoken Dub Manifesto Vol. 1 (Jarring Effects / PIAS)
French electro-dub duo Brain Damage are affiliated with St. Etienne-based reggae collective Bangarang, and this third artist album ‘Spoken Dub Manifesto Vol.1’ shows them working with an extensive list of collaborators to fashion a personal interpretation of ‘dub poetry’ in the vein of Prince Far I or The Last Poets. With a distinct and frequently eerie Middle Eastern atmosphere prevading the instrumental palette of almost all of the tracks here, much of ‘Spoken Dub Manifesto’ comes across as reminiscent of Bill Laswell’s excellent ‘Seven Souls’ collaboration with W.S. Burroughs, in style as well as execution. Particularly notable is the diversity of different vocal styles the various collaborators bring to the table; while Black Sifichi’s withered croak on the doom-dub tinged ‘Sterile’ makes him sound like he might’ve spent time practicing the trademark Burroughs delivery, Project Blow’s Giovanni Marks takes things out into rapid-fire hiphop syllables on ‘Embolism’, adeptly weaving between the dubbed-out echoes and one-drop rhythms.
Perhaps most arresting however is Blurt lead singer Ted Milton’s unhinged vocal turn on the saxophone-drenched ‘Pure Scenario’, his erratic vowels and indeed howls reverberating in the finest No Wave tradition over undulating synthetic sub-bass and mournful Middle Eastern strings, the distant sound of sampled crying babies adding a distinctly harrowing undercurrent. While the vocal appearances certainly sit at the forefront of this album, the increasingly lush instrumental backings employed by the duo prove to be equally as potent, with Brain Damage steering things from deep Marrakech dub atmospheres straight through to pulsing electro-techno, without any semblance of putting a foot wrong. An excellent third album from Brain Damage that sits somewhere between the Wordsound label and Bill Laswell / Material’s deep Middle Eastern-tinged dub explorations.
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