Free For All

Out originally on the Aires label, in a plain, stenciled sleeve, this is a thrilling early-mid-'70s dub album based around three cuts of the dreader than dread Free for All rhythm. The music is made by Melvin Munchie Jackson and Lloyd Barnes, with productions begun in Jamaica and finished at the Sounds Unlimited studio in New York. Several surfaced at different stages as 7s on Bullwackies' Aires imprint, and on the Tafari label which Munchie ran with his brother Maurice and Little Roy, in the Washington Gardens district of Kingston. The title track was recorded at Randy's, and came originally on the Heptones' Hepic label, featuring Family Man Barrett on keyboards, and on the DJ cut here, Meditation Dub - sounds like Charlie Ace. There are dubs of Little Roy's Tribal War and Black Bird; Stranger Cole's My Application, later re-voiced by the Heptones, turns up as Dis-Ya-A-Dub; and if things weren't smoke-filled enough, roots is the rhythm of K.C. White's All for Free. Hard to imagine a heavier dub set reissued this year.