Reviews

The fact you can record a reggae version of just about every song in every genre is should be common knowledge by now, and for 'Reggae Style' the Wagram label collected no less than 64 reggae versions of well-known hits from soul, pop and rock history.

With 'La Dôtu Lado' duo Coladera, consisting of singer and guitarist Vitor Santana from Belo Horizonte in Brazil and Portuguese vocalist/guitarist Joao Pires, once again prove how hip and yet little explored Cape Verdean music is.

It had already been since 2015 that we'd last heard from Jurgen Orville Seedorf aka Joggo, but with this 'Love Ova War' EP, the Dutchman proves he hasn't lost any of his feathers yet.

Compared to the influx of European productions, the situation in Jamaica remains pretty quiet where dub releases are concerned. With this 'Tads Hi-Power Dub', the Tad's Record label is now trying to change that.

Since 2014's 'The Skankin' Cat', the Japanese maneki neko (literally translated: "beckoning cat", and considered a protective or good luck charm modeled on the Japanese cat) has been a signboard for French dub duo Mahom. Joris and Toinou have become a regular fixture in the French dub scene and with this new album crown themselves 'King Cat'.

Berlin Boom Orchestra is a nine-piece German reggae band around singer and MC Filou, lyrically mainly sticking to the language of Goethe.

In 2016 Cameroonian singer-songwriter Blick Bassy released 'Le Moabi Cinéma', his first, largely autobiographical, novel in which he looked for ways to regain control over his fate, how to escape from Western cultural imperialism, which is particularly noticeable in Africa, and how to pick up the thread of his own history. The answers to these pressing questions can now be found on '1958', a concept album in which he pays homage to the heroes of the Cameroon independence movement and Ruben Um Nyobè in particular.

After having previously experimented with reggae interpretations of French chanson, hip-hop classics or soundtracks of famous Hollywood films, for 'Classical Dub', French producer Thomas Blanchot aka Mato created a series of dub interpretations of compositions from the canon of classical music.

Dominik Haas, better known as Jahcoustix, didn't decide to name his newest album 'Reunion' for no reason, as for this album he once again joined forces with Oneness Records producer and current Dub Inc bass player Moritz Von Korff and sound wizard Umberto Echo, with whom he recorded his debut album 'Souljahstice' in 2003 and 'Grounded' in 2006.

Waiting for their debut album to be released sometime in the spring of next year, Rootz Radicals are already presenting this 'Sampler One', a downloadable compilation free of charge featuring 13 of their already released singles.