2000: a Bass Odyssey

Album Review

Despite its name, Dubadelic is not a reggae band. Instead, it's sort of a Brooklyn underground supergroup whose membership is never clearly defined, but which seems to consist of the Eye, Professor Shehab, the mighty Dr. Israel, Corporal Blossom, turntable wizard DXT and perhaps even Bill Laswell, among others. The noise that this crew makes draws equally on dub, old-school hip hop and the dark, loping trip-hop that was just starting to makes its way across the Atlantic from Brixton and Manchester, England at the time of this album's release. It's a pretty compelling sound: on "Johnny's Outta Jail," a compressed North African vocal sample drifts in and out of the mix as a Bootsy Collins-ish bass squelches along below and a bare-bones funk drum part stutters in between. "Dub of Justice" features an extremely low and minimal bassline and heavily altered drums, while "Psychobabble" lumbers along ponderously, powered by an elephantine drumbeat, weird vocal samples and outer-space keyboards. It's not really dance music; it's more like sit-down funk.