Phil Pratt - The War Is On Dub Style (Pressure Sounds)

The foundation for this album was laid at Joe Gibbs' studio in Jamaica, with reputed musicians as Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespear, Lloyd Parks, Winston 'Bopee' Bowen and Bobby Kalphat behind the instruments. However, the final mix was done at Eddy 'Eddyman' Williams' Easy Street Studios in Bethnal Green, for a while one of the favorite hangouts for visiting Jamaican producers and British reggae musicians in the early nineteen eighties. Phil Pratt: "Well, Easy Street was a bit like a party place them times. There was a back room where everybody can go round there and do what them because do, you understand me, it was nice man. Cos in those days everybody get tipsy and drink, cos it was like fun those times, and we get together and come up with some good things. Everybody who come from Jamaica would work at the studio cos it had the best sound, the bottom was superb, so 95% of the reggae tune made up here was made at Easy Street. It was a good sound and me with some good fellow out of it too.". In the track list 8 dub versions of songs by, among others, Ronnie Davis (interpretations of Errol Dunkley's 'Black Cinderella' and John Holt's 'Strange Things', here 'Easy Street Special' and title track 'The War Is On') and Owen Gray ('We Hear Them A Say', here 'Dancing Kid') - if you purchase the CD version, you'll also get the original vocal cuts - always with Bobby Kalphat's melodica in a leading role. In the liner notes of 'The War Is On Dub Style' Pratt proves himself to be an unconditional fan of Kalphat's melodica work, and that to the detriment of grand master Augustus Pablo: "To be honest with you, he was better than Augustus Pablo by far, but we have to give Pablo some credit cos he did start the melodica thing.". Judge for yourself, and purchase this excellent melodica-dub album!