LEE PERRY
The Compiler Vol. 1 (Rectangle International Ltd.)
Reviewed by Holly Day

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Ah, yes - nothing like listening to reggae music on an especially non-Caribbean day. Reminds me of being a little kid in Nebraska, hanging out with my parents, watching them get stoned and telling them repeatedly that "cigarettes cause cancer, you know" and then wondering why they were laughing so hard. And then later, working at a rastafarian shop and watching my parents getting stoned with my boss and thinking, "Boy, they smoke a lot of pot!" While working at that reggae shop made me more than sick of the majority of reggae music, there are some musicians that I intentionally seek out because they're just good - Lee "Scratch" Perry is one of them. This collection covers mostly his early solo work, but already, you can hear the beginnings of his innovative dub work, tape manipulation, an assortment of bizarre keyboard sounds, psychedelic spoken word bits and pieces, and just weird Perry noises in general. It's reggae music, but it definitely shows that Perry was moving on to better and more bizarre things in the near future.

[Pick this up at www.disque.co.uk.]

© 2002 - Holly Day