If you’ve been paying attention over the last year and a half, you’ll have noticed that F-Spot Records’ reggae output hasn’t just been restricted to funky reggay supergroup Night Owls and that the label has also been dropping 45s by Marcus I meets aDUBTA. The latter duo consists of two like-minded individuals from either side of the Alps who share a monumental love of classic reggae as well as the proto-reggae riddims of rocksteady. It’s a love much in evidence on singles Heavy Manners, Listen Up My Son and Mr Money Man. All three were recorded at aDubta’s Attic Roots Studio in Bavaria with his band The Black Oak Roots Allstars whose name nods to Lee Perry’s Black Ark Studios and gives you a sense of precisely the sort of vibrations you can expect from debut LP Fullness. Which is to say it’s all about the warmth of analog tape recording with one foot usually in the early reggae or rocksteady riddims of the late 1960s and the other in (overwhelmingly positive) rootsy lyrics and vocal stylings of the mid to late 1970s reggae scene.
Unusually, not one of the singles appears on the album at all which is testament to the creative powers of the pair whose confidence in this previously unreleased twelve-track set is very well-placed. Why? Because the tracks on Fullness are at least on a par with the singles for quality and the highlights above and beyond. Opener Upful delivers sunny lilting warmth that takes it cues from mid-70s while Mr Bossman, Island‘s tribute to Jamaica and Upstream opt for a Freddie McGregor-ish combination of rocksteady riddim and rootsy-style vocal delivery. Things get positively soulful on Youthman and later too towards the end of the LP on the closing trio of Untold Story, Streets At Night and Up On The Roof. The monkey’s favourite cuts however are the more uptempo skank of Your Love and especially this LP’s absolute highlight – the apparently gospel-influenced Open The Gate which features some close vocal harmonising over a beautiful, gently-skankin groove – here’s hoping this one ends up on 45. Fullness by Marcus I and aDubta then – replete with reggae-soul goodness!
(Out now on F-Spot Records)