Jamaican Roots Music

A two-disc set drawn from the Trojan vaults, Arise Rootsman is a varied and well-sequenced tour of Jamaican roots reggae. Highlights are frequent, including the opening track, "After a Storm," by Justin Hinds & the Dominoes, "Train to Glory," by the Ethiopians, and the best version the Heptones did of one of their best songs, "Hypocrite." An early Wailing Souls track, "Harbour Shark," is a particular delight.

Jamaican roots reggae master, and frequent collaborator with British trip hop group Massive Attack, teams up with former PiL bassist Jah Wobble for a brand new set of studio recordings! Andy's voice is one of the most distinguished and inimitable in reggae and thoroughly shines on such classics as Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" The Beatles' "Come Together," and America's "A Horse With No Name" PLUS new versions of Andy's own classics "Skylarking" and "Natty Dread A Weh She Want" and more! Wobble's production blends reggae with modern dub and world music for one of the richest reggae albums likely to be released this year!

Jamaican roots reggae master, and frequent collaborator with British trip hop group Massive Attack, teams up with former PiL bassist Jah Wobble for a brand new set of studio recordings! Andy's voice is one of the most distinguished and inimitable in reggae and thoroughly shines on such classics as Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" The Beatles' "Come Together," and America's "A Horse With No Name" PLUS new versions of Andy's own classics "Skylarking" and "Natty Dread A Weh She Want" and more! Wobble's production blends reggae with modern dub and world music for one of the richest reggae albums likely to be released this year!

The Wailing Souls at Channel One: Sevens, Twelves and Versions Review by Don Snowden
Pressure Sounds is geared towards recovering Jamaican roots rarities and Wailing Souls at Channel One fits that bill. There is a lot of high-quality music here, but it's better for collectors and completists nosing around the fringes for Wailing Souls' alternates and oddities than initiates looking to get core essentials.

In the 1970s, Jamaica came alive to the sounds of roots reggae. British rapper, poet and political commentator Akala tells the story of this golden period in the island's musical history, a time when a small group of musicians took songs of Rastafari, revolution and hope to the international stage.

This set, with its powerful melodies, brilliant playing (note the superb horns) and all round attitude, is a sparkling reminder of how reggae sounded when it first influenced the world music scene in the Seventies. But it afso bears testimony to the sophisticated consciousness, wisdom and Afrocentric worldview that were the trademarks of the Rasta rebel soul at that time. This music had weight. That 'Roots' and 'Culture' became pilloried cliches at the beginning of the 80s says something about the rot that had set in at the heart of reggae - and just as much about, how times had changed. The idea of Roots - kind of personified by Alex Haley's mid-Seventies book and TV series of the same period - typified the search for an African identity, after centuries of physical and then economic slavery, amongst Jamaican youth.

Bringing together over 50 of Jamaica's greatest session musicians, whose work spans from the birth of reggae in the late 1960s until today, Roots Architects is the largest gathering of Jamaican musical talent on one all-instrumental album. Never before have so many veterans, who helped create the immortal rhythms that made reggae internationally successful, been assembled to play on new material without vocals. This album aims to celebrate and pay tribute to the unsung heroes of reggae music: the rhythm builders or Roots Architects.