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Lovers rock was already something of a dub, or even a double dub—a copy of a copy that revealed new resonances. Dreamed up in the 1970s and ’80s by Caribbean immigrants living in London, lovers rock riffed sweetly on the Jamaican imports of the day while harkening back to reggae’s own primary source: soul music from the U.S. When Guyana-born producer Neil “Mad Professor” Fraser opened his South London studio, Ariwa Sounds, in 1979, reggae record production was firmly oriented around the kind of studio wizardry that exulted in denaturing the musical materials at hand, including the most dulcet serenades. Stripping a song to its basic elements and riffing on it in real time, whether with knobs and faders in the studio or by rapping over the record at a soundsystem dance, was the order of the day—a state of the art wrought by a decade-long assault on production conventions by such inspired mixing engineers as King Tubby and Lee “Scratch” Perry and their soundsystem counterparts, mic-wielding deejays from U-Roy to Lone Ranger. A lifelong tinkerer, Fraser put together his own gear, style, and cohort in London, and in the years since, Ariwa released over 300 records and remixes.
A new compilation from reissue label Melodies International selects a lean, mean 15 from Ariwa’s nearly 50-year run, especially the heady days of the ’80s and ’90s when Mad Professor was on a hot streak, recording Jamaican legends and a charming cadre of second-generation UK-based vocalists who helped recast reggae’s sentimental side into its own local style. For Mad Professor, lovers rock, or any kind of reggae, always implies a dub producer’s audibly hands-on approach, ear for arrangement, and kaleidoscopic flourishes. This compilation combines fully instrumental, extended dub workouts and pop-length love songs that aim for hearts and charts but also bubble with subtlety. It includes previously unreleased tracks that Mad Professor had been playing at gigs as exclusive dubplates, and it features a panoply of vocalists—venerable Jamaican crooners Johnny Clarke and Horace Andy; “talkover” deejays like U-Roy, Sister Nancy, and Ranking Ann; London-based lovers rock luminaries Kofi and Sandra Cross—all supported by one of the most astute dub producers to touch the sliders. While the collection aims to showcase Ariwa’s diversity, it’s testament to Fraser’s signature sound how well all the tracks work alongside each other while spanning five decades.
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With over seven minutes of unhurried modulation, the Johnny Clarke opener “Come Back to Me” sets the tone. The lyrics suggest longing, while the instrumentation savors and queries plaintive fragments (“…my miss-miss-miss-misery…”). Half the time is given to Clarke’s song and the other half brings Mad Professor’s elaborations to the fore, but the producer’s bold brushstrokes are always there. Fraser’s fingers tease out a constantly unfolding arrangement across every track, flinging elements across the stereofield, catching and looping chords and cries with polyrhythmic delays, heightening the smack of a snare with a burst of reverb, detourning the mix with the radical irruption of rewinding tape, or paring everything down to the studs: bass and drums.
Aside from Ranking Ann’s “Liberated Woman,” an epic dub-and-deejay outing that nearly lasts 10 minutes, most of the comp’s tracks show more restraint and attention to pop form. The lovers rock singles last four or five minutes, with supple musical detail supporting the singers, and devotees of the style will not be disappointed by the R&B riffing and falsetto keening. The sunny consciousness raiser “Wake Up” by Sgt. Pepper (Garnett Cross) seems ready to take dubby flight after three minutes of singing but soon fades out. “Non-Violence Dub,” on the other hand, is largely instrumental, propelled by the steady kicks of a “steppers” rhythm, haunted by a dub siren, and only offering ghostly flickers of the great Horace Andy. The dubbiest of these tracks are absolutely thrilling, and more dub versions expanding on each vocal track may have produced a more consistent collection. But the aim for holistic representation is salutary, and Ariwa productions are always worth a close listen. Even the most saccharine singers or synths tend to be tempered by astringent drums and enough bass punch to satisfy the low-freq freaks. The Ariwa catalog, replete with references to reggae and soul and brimming with Mad Professor’s dazzling details, abounds with such ear-grabbing and mind-bending echoes.
