Reggae Goodies, Vol. 1

First released in 1977, this album was an early celebration of the reggae aesthetic that producer Lloyd “Bullwackie” Barnes was forging with a fellow group of Jamaican expatriates. Like his Kingston-based contemporaries Keith Hudson and Lee Perry, Barnes sought to eliminate the boundary between vocal cuts and dub mixes. Instead, his singers were given placement on tracks that had already been woven with elements of dub. A perfect example is “I Belong to You” by The Love Joys, a pair of female cousins. Their diffuse, teenage-sounding vocals echo over the track as waves of synthesizer and guitar brush up against them in a blissful haze. While The Love Joys used Barnes’ style to translate the feeling of new romance, Wackies was better known for tunes that exuded loneliness and worry. The brooding tempos of Stranger Cole’s “Capture Land,” Johnny Clarke’s “Recession," and Wayne Jarrett’s “African Woman” capture the feeling of dislocation that the Jamaican musicians felt living in New York City. In succinctly encapsulating the label’s sonic imprint, no song is more definitive than Joe Morgan’s “Basement Session.”