Dub War

Coxsone vs. Quaker City – Dub War
Reviewed by Sadie O., 8/7/09
Roots reggae dub. Nothing earth shattering, just good meaty dub. The liner notes are completely stoned – I have no idea what Quaker city is, but Coxsone Dodd and Bunny Lee are long-time top dub producers down a Yard. Almost all tracks start with incoherent spoken intro, much of them referring to the “war” between Coxsone and this Quaker City. Being guys, you know, you can’t just do something without making it into a purported contest… All that aside, it’s tasty dub – what’s wrong with that, I ask you?
FCCs? Who can possibly tell? All good stuff.
1. 2:58 **spoken patois intro, then midtempo one-drop dub with a bit of electronics.
2. 2:56 ***another spoken patois intro that continues into toasting, very dubbed up midtempo one-drop with a bit of nyahbinghi. Nice beefy OG dub.
3. 4:35 ***short spoken intro, rather uptempo, very bouncy bubble with a bit of horns. I think it’s very safe to say that we are Irie, mon.
4. 3:07 ***spoken intro, yadda yadda – uptempo nyahbinghi, swingy and snakey. Nice bits of bass up front in the mix.
5. 3:12 **s.i., then downtempo bubble.
6. 2:42 **impenetrable singing, martial skank.
7. 2:50 **great spoken intro – crazed syllabification, might as well be Urdu. Uptempo bubble, happy and stoned.
8. 2:45 **slightly downtempo one-drop, nice fat horn section.
9. 3:30 **rather uptempo skank. Unexplainable bits of jazzy guitar.
10. 2:56 ***fairly godawful singing and a bit of toasting (godawful in a good way), slightly uptempo bubble.