Reggaebus Night 2014: culture clash with Channel One & Iration Steppas

I only stormed in at half past ten, when the session should have been in progress already, but it was still surprisingly quiet in Tour & Taxis. Through the grapevine I heard that both crews had been to a restaurant and been delayed. No probs for me: after about five minutes' queuing I was amazed to hear Iration Steppas setting out with a roots selection. Songs like 'World Dominion' (Twinkle Brothers) and 'True Rasta' (Misty In Roots) were followed by  a dub of Conscious Sound, the UK dub/roots label of Dougie 'Conscious' Wardrop, ex- Bush Chemists.

Yet the Iration sound was not quite up to scratch. The volume was okay, but the fine-tuning left a lot to be desired: the bass was pushed up way too loud as a result of which the rest of the sound vanished in a haze. On top of that the vocals (this time courtesy of Sammy Dreadlocks instead of Macky Banton) sounded far too sharp and unpalatable.

After a 30-minute set it was Channel One's turn. As ever they gave us an exquisite selection of roots reggae with classics like 'Door Peep Shall Not Enter' (Burning Spear), 'No Tribal War' (Jah Lloyd) and King Tubby's dub version. The tempo was raised with 'Nyabinghi Warrior' (Prince Livijah) and 'Repent' (Twinkle Brothers). That was the signal for Iration to switch to  some tougher dub work. First there was 'River Jordan' (Ranking Joe) and then the typical digital dub steppers inna year 3000 style.

But right from the first stepper tune I felt like being at a techno party. Dry kicks combined with earsplitting dub sirens provided the whole shebang with a high fairground feeling. The mood turned significantly more frigid and I saw a lot of worrying faces. The James Bond dub by Iration Steppas equally yielded quite a few iffy reactions. Yet the DJs themselves seemed pretty confident of the quality of this exclusive dubplate and granted it no less than three pull-ups. Fortunately they consequently also played Pablo Gad's 'Hard Time'. Do you really wanna know about Iration Steppas?

Too bad that this way Channel One didn't get the opportunity to build up a solid set. Time and time again the contrast was too big, from quiet, steady roots to dry dub steppers. When Iration was about to blow his own speakers, Channel One came to the rescue with his neatly tuned sound to ease the ears a bit. In short, not exactly a home run, this Reggaebus Night. Yet still representative of the current evolution in the dub scene, in two almost opposite directions. Translation: Rudi