Anti-Racist Dub Broadcast - Black Liberation Dub (Chapter 2)

Perhaps it's only clear to Neil "Mad Professor" Fraser why he abandoned his Dub Me Crazy volumes in favor of the Black Liberation imprint. Regardless, the latter series seemed to breathe new life into the London producer's digital dub. It's almost as if Fraser decided to return to the source for inspiration: the late-'70s gospel of dub according to King Tubby and his stable of mixers. Where the Dub Me Crazy sets strew digital kitchen-sink elements across tracks, the tools of Black Liberation dub are the Professor's own brands of echo, reverb and fader manipulation. Giving the horn duo of Rico and Bammi a prominent role on Anti-Racist Dub Broadcast serves the music well. On the opening title track, they display all the swaggering cool of a '70s cop show theme, dub style. On "Pandora's Box" and "King Jimmy's Dub," so much echo is applied that the horns are continually getting in their own way, while "Buthelezi Trump Card" finds them clipped and manipulated, nearly beyond recognition. For his part, Fraser rarely allows the energy to wane. "Pandora's Box" proves that his drum machines can speak a dub language all their own. The producer nearly outdoes himself on the full-fledged alien attack of "Petty Bourgeois Dub." Taking the heavyweight sound to heights of his own, he gives new meaning to the word "dread" as he liquefies the beat and drives it through your speakers. There's a loose concept here, emerging in song titles ("Basking in Colonialism"'s jib at British rule) and snippets of spoken word (a couple of Jesse Jackson speech segments). Unlike the bizarre, digital vocal effects Fraser often applies, such elements only enhance these settings. Sets like Anti-Racist Dub Broadcast proved that Mad Professor still had more to say and that dub remained his ideal channel.