2005年 10月 23日 日曜日 08:24

Having just purchased an excellent book - "Reggae & Carribean Music" by Dave Thompson (which cost me the princely sum of 97 pence from Music Zone - which for over 500 pages has to be a megabargain), I've been having a bit of a love affair with reggae this week. Thanks to the miracle of the internet I've acquired some top, top tunes and I think it only fair to recommend a few. So… fancy a bit of reggae? Try these:

Sinsemilla
Sponji Reggae
Marcus Garvey
Satta Massagana
Legalize It

I also got hold of Murderer - which is scarily good. Initially I was reluctant to try Buju Banton for size, but the book assures me this track was recorded after Banton embraced Rastafarianism and decided against being a homophobic arsehole all his life. I hope so. The lyrics certainly suggest a new found tolerance ("All man created equal") and there's none of that repulsive gay-bashing which cropped up in his earlier work.

And finally - my discovery of the week. If you're already a serious reggae fan then you will no doubt already know Eek-A-Mouse. I'd heard him on Liz Kershaw's Radio 6 show a while back and when I read a bit more about him in the book I investigated further. The fact that he is referred to at one point as a "skinny Jamaican fruitcake" was appealing. The world needs more lunatics. Anyhoo - thus far I've… erm… "obtained" three tracks by him, all of them are utterly brilliant -

Wa-Do-Dem
Hitler
Ganja Smuggling (live at Reggae Sunsplash).

Eek-A-Mouse is certainly different… but that weird "biddy-biddy-beng" vocal is strangely irresistible and no mistake.

Right… I'm off. A bientot.