In Dub

The pedigree of this album is a bit complicated. The source material comes from releases by Simon Posford, who records under the name Hallucinogen. But the versions of those tracks contained here were dubbed up by Ott — and that seems to be the only name he goes by, except that he also records in a more trancey mode under the name Eco. As the admirably straightforward title of this album would indicate, the mixes Ott designs for Hallucinogen are deeply rooted in classic dub-wise reggae, though you would never mistake them for the genuine article. For one thing, he manages to employ all the standard studio tricks of dub — echo, delay, phasing, and instruments popping up out of the murk and then submerging again — without ever creating the mystical, spiritual quality that characterized most Jamaican dub of the 1970s. Even on tracks like the "Wicked Bassmonkey Mix" of "Solstice" and the "It's Turtles All the Way Down Mix" of "Gamma Goblins," which are nothing if not trippy and sometimes downright pretty, the grooves are hard and clean rather than smoky and trippy. And the "World Sheet of Closed String Mix" of "L.S.D." sounds attractively like a summit meeting between Strange Parcels and Mad Professor. Most pleasantly surprising of all is the fact that even with an average track length of just over nine minutes, not a single one of these tunes sounds too long. In fact, you finish the album with a distinct sense of disappointment. There are other dub albums you can say that about, but not very many.