Master Piece

Lee Scratch Perry – Master Piece
Reviewed by Sadie O., 11/11/12
Dub/trance/etc (lots of etc – some tracks switch up completely several times, then there are different remixes of the same song…) As far as I can tell, it’s a producer named Born Free from Switzerland doing remixes of a Scratch EP (“employing some of the techniques of the Mad Professor”), featuring his own added, very stoned vocals on a couple of tracks. 10 tracks, 5 songs. Doesn’t sound promising, but some of the tracks are very good indeed.
No FCCs detected.
1. 4:13 *jazzy piano, vague R&B female vocals… very subdued and slow swingy groove with only a hint of dub and not particularly Reggae, but Scratch can pretty much chat over any chune and give it soul…
2. 8:58 **totally dubbed up horn intro, then midtempo swingy one-drop riddim. Just when I’m totally loving it, switches to sad acoustic guitar and violins – what? Then some scratching, and uptempo rock steady! I like all the switching up, but I’m not totally down with every style switched… No Scratch apparent.
3. 11:45 ***dubby horn intro, swingy one-drop, Scratch chanting. False ending a bit over halfway through, back with electronic pulses and percussion. Trance-y, dubby, nice.
4. 4:27 ****fade-in to bouncy boopy electronic hip-wiggler, Scratch nonsense vocals and very stoned commentary by the producer. Cool riddim.
5. 4:19 ****same formula, but snarly electronics
6. 3:41 ****same formula, funky syncopated percussion. Goes ineplicably mellow at end.
7. 3:18 *this version starts all mellow with the stoned commentary up front. Gets better, but no reason to play this instead of one of the above versions.
8. 5:08 **Scratch preaches over electronic thump, then rather nebulous and cinematic production. Interesting.
9. 3:28 YECCH. Are you kidding me?
10. 2:24 *jazzy piano, female backing vocals, Scratch chanting, more electronics than track 1.