Jah Wobble & The Chinese Dub Orchestra - Chinese Dub

Fascinating collusion of East, West and down-deep dub

This could well be one of the greatest things to have come out of Liverpool’s status as Capital Of Culture 2008. Wobble’s commissioned collaboration with a selection of handpicked traditional Chinese musicians came to a wonderful blossoming conclusion with a series of gigs that blended Chinese music with his own hefty dub leanings. This album is the beautiful extrapolation of those unique moments.

The whole thing is fantastic from start to finish but try the traditional Dragon & Phoenix, complete with Eastern instrumentation and a big, big bassline underneath, for a masterclass in not just melding two very diverse cultural and musical developments, but also somehow showing that despite (or because of) the disparity, there’s way, way more in common than you might at first think. Elsewhere, L1 Dub is a splendid piece of Wobblism and Horse Mountain Song, another traditional, is given a tender and tremendous makeover.

This is an album and a project that tells many stories: of its creation, of the weight of history behind the project, the tales of the songs themselves. Culture can have a capital way beyond geographical and stylistic boundaries, and music of this calibre is a rich, eloquent and wonderful expression thereof.

30 Hertz | 30HZ CD 30

Reviewed by Joe Shooman
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