A collaboration between two Melburnian stalwarts, Pieter Bourke (Soma, Lisa Gerrard) and Brian Westbrook (Centriphugal), The Lost Dub Tapes is a genuine attempt at achieving an authentic yet original Australian voice in dub. Though dub albums are a relative rarity in the oz musical landscape, the Secret Masters are preceded by classic albums by the likes of Jeff Dread and Sherrif Lindo and by up and coming producers like Melbourne’s Jake Savona - all of whom have managed to strike an individual sonic path in their explorations of the lower end. Though The Lost Dub Tapes is well engineered and mixed, and the vocal performances by the guests are exemplary, for mine there’s still something missing in its execution. It just doesn’t sit right, and certainly doesn’t get me riled up like a classic steppas or a one-drop - in fact it has more in common with edgy gloss(olalia) of Transglobal Underground than anything from Jamaica or the UK reggae scene. And that’s by no means a bad thing, but it may just be a bland thing – and that’s something that sufferation ain’t. The chills that greet the first breathy notes of a Garnett Silk tune or the bass drop in a Jah Shaka tune have been replaced with some quaintly stylish notion of ‘chill out’. DH
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