Ska 8 Items

In 2020, Cosmic Shuffling took the global rocksteady and ska scene by storm with its hit singles ‘Eastern Ska’ and ‘Short Break’ taken from the band first album “Magic Rocket Ship”. Highly acclaimed by the fans of sixties Jamaican sounds, this first album was sold out in a few weeks only. Now the band returns with brand new music!

Warning! This is original SKA music of the highest calibre. This new double A side 7” record will set the dancefloor on fire. ’jupiter’s Garden’ is an heavy, slow and extremely groovy instrumental ska blown by a six-piece horns section. It is instantly reminiscent of Don Drummond's melancholic compositions with The Skatalites. The music made by these Jamaican legends in the sixties will never be equalled, but Cosmic Shuffling pays a striking tribute to the style and sound of the Greats. Ready to take off on an outerspace dancing journey?

On the flip side, ‘asteroid Field I’ continues the journey through a zone of intense turbulence: the tempo becomes fiercer, the chords move away from traditional harmonies and the virtuoso soloists display their talent one after the other. All of this on a frenzied rhythm worthy of The Soul Brothers.

You can’t miss this record. Double scorcher. Double fireball. Available on 7” vinyl record with pantone silver ink label. Limited screen printed and numbered sleeves edition of 90 copies!

Frontline is the 9th studio album by Dub Pistols. Chief rabble-rousers & festival favourites, the band are known for their veritable feast of jump-up party-starting sounds, melding dub, reggae, dancehall, ska & DnB into an irresistible tonic that has seen them amass a merry band of Pistoleros across the world.

For this chapter, they are joined by a stellar band of featured artists including both legendary & award-winning collaborators such as Horseman, Top Cat, The Freestylers, Myki Tuff and Chezidek alongside long-term Posse members The Ragga Twins, Lindy Layton, Natty Campbell, King Yoof and Cheshire Cat, and regular Dub Pistol frontman Seanie T.

So, saddle up and join the gang, it's time to ride to the Frontline!

Man from Wareika was the first album recording for Rico Rodriguez led by his own artistic imagination, not to mention the only roots reggae album to be released on Blue Note Records in the USA. After 15 years Rodriguez returned for the first time to Jamaica. He had left the country in 1961 when he was already heavily involved in creating the then new ska sound. In 1976 he added something new to reggae music. The nine self-composed tracks on the album offer intense Jamaican rhythms with seriously horn lines more linked to the jazz heritage. The trombonist album was released on Island Records in 1976 for the UK market and soon labeled as a revolutionary step forward.

Death Is Not The End together all three LP volumes of the critically acclaimed If I Had a Pair of Wings LP compilation series for a bundled edition.
"...all of the music on this compilation is the result of the forward-thinking artists and producers that realised the worth of local Jamaican artistry during a time when the island's leading political figures had not yet managed to throw off the colonial yolk. These are sounds with a certain innocence and the optimistic promise of better to come, with the influence of American pop ballads and doo-wop looming large, yet already pointing to the innovations of the future. Listen keenly and take in the sounds of the Jamaican music industry at its very beginnings, its singers and players drawing from the popular styles of the island's larger neighbour and already changing those styles into something their own." - David Katz
Lauren Laverne's comp of the week on BBC Radio 6 Music w/c 11th Jan.
Guardian feature: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/oct/12/a-thousand-teardrops-how-doo-wop-kickstarted-jamaica-pop-revolution-reggae-rocksteady