Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

What I wrote before:

"The thing about muffled seventies Jamaican dub reverb-- it drifts out, bounces off burnt peaks, and I ride the ricochet-- not so much in pursuit of a trail, but when I stop, hear soundwaves lay out the land-- rhythm to echo, then back. Murky desert gold. I might return to humbler times, when King Tubby crafted dub transport from his studio in a hard Jamaican ghetto using materials at hand-- a frayed four-track machine, dub cutting lathe, and other improvised, outdated equipment. He left only a few lyrics intact, spared the echo chamber.... "Going to Africa.... Africa, tomorrow".... I steal the words. My own repatriation, imagined."

What I was going to write.... something like:





Three ridges might be too far this time; the road is unfit, even threatening. I can't hear it. I try to ease the sound barrier, slip in an old dub tape.... Fading reverb drifts out, bounces between ridges, lays out rock sculpture, side to side. I could ride that ricochet-- earth to hazy echo and back. Muffled desert gold. I might return to humbler times, when King Tubby made reverb into a portal, from his studio in a Jamaican ghetto, using a battered four-track machine and other mother-of-invention spare parts-- materials at hand.

I misjudged the horizon, and I'm left with dull granite. And I'm left with reverb, over bedrock rhythms, which moves me out into more of the same. King Tubby spared few lyrics in the mix, and I steal what he spared.... "Going to Africa.... Africa to-mor-row".... my own stolen repatriation, into Nevada dust. I steal Africa lyrics at my own risk, from their roots in separation. I take only what I need, from the rootsman, in his dreadest chambers-- his faith tested by foreign, barren earth, stripped to soft dub thunder, affirmed by the long views, where despair began to write of faith, inside a massive rhythm. Glen Brown used to write them in self-defense. His songs of attack me; I play them over and over. His words betray his pain, knife through the the echo chamber. I always seem to end up here, on this slope.