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Review: 'VARIOUS ARTISTS'
'Compendulum'   

-  Label: 'Sugar Shack Records'
-  Genre: 'Reggae' -  Release Date: '10th June 2016'-  Catalogue No: 'FOD112CD'

Our Rating:
This 16-track album is a labour of love by Chris Potter, a mainstay of Bristol based arts projects and reggae bands.

Potter was given unrestricted access to master tapes by Bristol Archive Records head Mike Darby and his choices bring together artists based in Bristol and the English Midlands.

Six tracks are by Birmingham's Black Symbol dating from the early 1980s and a couple are from Wolverhampton's Capital Letters.

Bristol are well represented by four tunes from youthful septuagenarian Bunny Marrett and although these were recorded more recently (in 2014/5), Bristol Rock, heard here in a leisurely extended version, is actually a tune from the 1970s.

The city's residents Prince Green (Drummie) and Jashwha Moses also contribute superb tracks. Jamaican born Green weighs in with impressive Prince Far I style readings of Cross Country Driver and Slave while What A Situation is drawn from Moses' 2015 album The Rising.

Six of the tracks are subjected to alternate dub-friendly treatments distinguished from the originals by the addendum 'Drub A Dub'.

Sugar Stack Records are at pains not to call this a straight remix record, preferring to describe it as a kind of remake/remodel of old and new selections from their impressive back catalogue. The distinction is a fine one but effectively places a focus on Potter's gut feelings rather than on any studio trickery.

Titles like Feeling Irie and Jah Music (both by Black Symbol) establish that there's no new ground being broken here.

The objective seems more to freshen up tracks to give them a contemporary sparkle. To my ear I'd say it's a case of mission accomplished.

Sugar Shack Records website
  author: Martin Raybould

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VARIOUS ARTISTS - Compendulum