Bass Jihad

Dub Gabriel – Bass Jihad
Reviewed by Sadie O., 8/16/07
Dub/trance with a heavy dose of Indian and other world roots. Fine drums and bass throughout. Almost all songs start quite sparse and build layers slowly. You can consider this trance or dance or electronica as well as dub – it’s only very marginally Reggae in many of the underlying beats.
Might be repeated FCC in track 5, I really can’t tell. 2 and 9 best, IMO.
1. 6:09 *drums and Arabian horns, very roots (and repetitive), but with some dubby effects and some electronics layered on after quite a while.
2. 5:59 ***dubbed up drums of various sorts, slow skank, very slinky and cool.
3. 7:07 **almost a Gnawa beat, some slow and swingy hand drums, subtle bass electronics.
4. 1:13 Electronic grunts, a bit of beat, processed speech saying stuff I can’t quite make out.
5. 6:06 **classical Indian flavor with some sitar and slow tabla beat, electronics, and after a bit a slow skank. Interesting sound… lots of disjointed bits of speech – sounds like FCC? Listen and see what you hear before you play it…
6. 3:22 **simple beat and speeded up speech (sounds like Hindu chanting), eventually joined by midtempo tabla-based skank. Very groovy beat.
7. 8:36 *sounds like mosquitos and beasties in a cave… joined by a slow funky skank. Very dubby with lots of odd noises.
8. 4:56 *organ chords and fuzz, later slow 60’s rock kinda beat with lots of hi-hat. Odd. Something that sounds vaguely like a didgeridoo near the end.
9. 5:15 ***slow funky beat, bits of some kind of percussive stringed instrument and harmonica. Neet!
10. 4:00 *rather fast beat, layers of processed speech of which occasional words can be made out.
11. 15:56 **oscillating buzz for 30 secs, then nice tabla and very gradual layers of sound. Slow skank starts after almost 2 minutes, groovy bass ‘n’ dub. No, it’s not a hidden bonus track, it actually is long enough for you to go out and get something to eat, not that I condone it…