Arabadub

Dub might have started out as the original remix, explorations of space in music from the likes of King Tubby, Keith Hudson, and Lee "Scratch" Perry. But over the years it's become an art extended to most kinds of music. Arabadub isn't the first album to fuse dub elements with Arab music, but it's certainly among the most successful. The Spy from Cairo (aka Zeb from New York) is an experienced producer and multi-instrumentalist, a person whose knowledge and feel for dub extend beyond the surface. It's very old-school — and in fact, there's a debt to Hudson in the sound created and the use of echo — and the swoop of strings adds real grandeur to pieces like "Desert Tears." He's also a good composer, not simply using effects, but skilfully manipulating them to add to the tune. He also has a knowledge of the Egyptian classical tradition and has updated that. The music becomes an adventure, a journey into the unknown full of surprises, the way dub really should be.