Jump ahead to the danker and gooier
Chapter Two if you want your mind blown, because
Trojan Dub Massive: Chapter One is lazier and pulls punches. With the
Dub Massive series, producer/remixer/what-have-you
Bill Laswell gets access to the deep reggae catalog of the Trojan label and grabs his favorite dubs for, as the liner notes put it, "enhancing." Just as he did with
Miles Davis on
Panthalassa and
Bob Marley on
Dreams of Freedom,
Laswell respects his source while remixing, and brews up a concoction the original parties would most likely approve. The only time this chapter deserves a stunned "wow man" is when
Laswell really twists the knobs and makes
the Upsetters' "Lover's Skank" sound like the intro to
the Who's "Eminence Front." Otherwise, he's only twisting things a bit, making everything sound thicker, and adding trippy segues to make this a journey instead of a collection of tracks. The segues and flow are much better on
Chapter Two, but the general arc of the disc is just fine, and ending with the earthy spiritualism of
Ras Michael is a smooth move from a guy who obviously knows his Trojan. Hearing
Ras Michael chanting in the distance as your
Laswell-supplied lunar cruiser drives across the moon dunes sets the stage perfectly for the more ambitious
Chapter Two (it also suggests that an all-nyahbinghi remix set from
Laswell would be divine). Start there if you want your Trojan well
Laswelled, then come back to
Chapter One when you're feeling less "out there."
–
David Jeffries, Rovi