Midnight Landing

Album Review

No other American band has shown as much dedication to preserving the spirit of 1970s roots reggae as the mysterious 10 Ft. Ganja Plant, a group that deliberately keeps its lineup shrouded in a cloud of pungent smoke (though it's an open secret that the band shares several members in common with the Ithaca, NY-based roots collective John Brown's Body). 10 Ft. Ganja Plant's third album finds the band doing the same thing it did, to glorious effect, on its first two: channeling the rich, dark spirit of the great reggae studios of the 1970s, in particular Channel One and Lee "Scratch" Perry's infamous Black Ark, where the wet and echoey ambience that 10 Ft. Ganja Plant favors was perfected. The band leans toward instrumentals with lots of dubwise production effects, but the strongest facets on Midnight Landing are the songs — in particular, the joyful "Let the Music Hit," and the resolutely skanking "Mercy." Whoever the vocalist is, he has an interesting voice that lands somewhere between Bob Marley and Leo Graham, and whoever the bass player is (ten bucks says it's David Gould), he lays down sweet, heavyweight basslines that will wind your waist and soothe your soul. Very highly recommended.