Lee “Scratch” Perry – The End of an American Dream
Reviewed by Sadie O., 11/8/07
Funky jazzy dubby skanky laid-back UTTER MADNESS. Sweet, quite mellow musical grooves from the great dubmaster, and train of thought improvisation from the nether regions of a truly strange brain. Is he a wise fool or a great swami or just smoking bales and bales of pot? Who cares? I just pity whoever doesn’t get to play this record as soon as possible…
Most lyrics are pretty undecipherable at any speed, but –
FCC on track 10. I like 9 and 14 best, but they’re all just MAD…
1. 4:54 ***downtempo funk skank, mellow, laid-back vocals almost skat extemporizing. A few stops and starts.
2. 0:22 church bell, electronic squawks, bit of diatribe.
3. 5:43 **downtempo and mellow but bouncy riddim, sad lyrics with lots of echo, American Babylon self-destruction.
4. 5:01 ***somewhat unstructured intro for almost a minute, then uptempo electronic dancehall riddim, very stoned vocals. Soft echoes and bleeps for last several seconds.
5. 0:11 random bit
6. 4:40 ***quite slow dancehall skank, extremely minimalist, completely bizarre lyrics. Monks will be at the party tonight… Bacteria, apparently, will NOT. Gets quite funky as it goes along.
7. 5:00 ***brief spoken intro, downtempo funky groove, layered vocals. Don’t try to make sense of this unless you’re on acid. Fades several seconds from end.
8. 0:28 riot sounds and recitation.
9. 5:15 ****hip hop groove with funky one-drop beat. Somebody repeats “New York”, and when he stops, Lee Perry talks wildness. Stops and comes back with more urgency. Vocal echoes for last half minute.
10. 6:50 FCC: “shit” ***uptempo and complex electronic dancehall groove, rubber band sounds.
11. 5:34 **slow, rather funky skank, lots of nonsense. No, I mean even more than all the other tracks – seriously!
12. 5:06 ***funky jazzy something (maybe it’s just cause he keeps saying “jazzam shazzam”….) Electronic critter dying at end, as far as I can tell.
13. 5:33 ***bongos, crows, coughing, midtempo dancehall skank.
14. 4:48 ****brief intro, then downtempo electronic funk skank, great voodoo insanity lyrics.
15. 0:12 Lee Perry is NUTS.
16. 4:49 ***guns, scratching, samples, jazzy funky groove…