tempobet yeni adresi
like this cd review

17/08/2015 : VARIOUS ARTISTS - Front Line Presents Reggae Discomixes

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Front Line Presents Reggae Discomixes

MusicCD
Reggae

[90/100]   

Virgin Records
17/08/2015, Paul PLEDGER

And the reggae compilations keep on coming from the Front Line vaults (and Island - see separate review here) with this concise double CD round-up of the label's most impressive extended mixes. For me, Virgin's skanking offshoot was the UK's superior reggae imprint of the 20th century, with possibly On-u Sound a close second.

Sure, Island had the big boys and hard players all signed up but the depth of Front Line's output is hard to argue against. Their roster had an earthy honesty throughout and despite not gracing our then rather dull radio too often, save for the odd Peel appearance, there is much to savour here.

The most familiar names rub shoulders with one-offs and newbies like one big family and you'd swear that most of the discomixes here might have been hits in another life. Dr Alimantado's Find The One, U Brown's tuffest River John Mountain and I Roy's basement banger Fire in a Wire resonate like little Caribbean earthquakes, bass-lines on a seismic scale, social roots newsflashes and stories of a bygone age that isn't so bygone in 2015.

For some light relief head to the gorgeous Cairo, performed here by Joyella Blade but later covered by tropical popsters Amazulu and Bananarama - Blade's version is the ultimate and here is presented in unreleased glued-together form. There's also the rare 12" version of Gregory Isaac's inimitably smooth and soulful Permanent Lover and, perhaps one of Front Line's most cruelly ignored crooners Delroy Washington delivering You Know I Want To Be.

No duff tracks, perhaps a couple that don't quite rank and skank with the best of them but whatever, Reggae Discomixes is tuffer than tuff.

This review also appeared also on Flipside Reviews.

Paul PLEDGER
17/08/2015


Music reviews

28
06
S.Y.P.H.
Album 4
27
06
A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS
Some Dreams
26
06
BRIDES
Sandcastle
24
06
THE LIGHT DREAMS
Málverk
23
06
BLACK ROSE MOVES
Death Dance
22
06
SUBTERFUGE
Dividing Times

NEWSLETTER

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

NEWS

12
07
6 years ago Rüdiger Frank of Printed At Bismarck's Death and The Tors Of Dartmoor passed away...
10
07
This month it’s 33 years ago Ministry released N.W.O. (New World Order)!
09
07
12 years ago, Front Line Assembly released their 15th full-length studio album 'Echogenetic'.
08
07
42 years of Butthole Surfing!
08
07
44 of Party Mix! by The B52's
03
07
I Wanted To Tell Her by Ministry 42 now!

Concert reviews

22
04
GAVIN FRIDAY
Live at 404 / De Vooruit - Ghent - 01/04.2025
28
11
BELGIAN ELECTROWAVE IS NOT DEAD 3
Belgian ElectroWave Is Not Dead 3

GET A COPY OF OUR MAGAZINE
SEND TO YOUR HOME

INTERVIEWS

11
07
EUFORIC EXISTENCE
'The objective was to turn the sadness into a better life or an “Euforic Existence”... It worked!'
10
07
DER MUSSIKANT
'Discipline and a sequencer. This is the only combination that works.'
09
07
31ST TILE
A 2025 Dark Demo(n) : 'Long live the synthesizer… The one man orchestra'
08
07
ASSFALT
A 2025 Dark Demo(n): 'Music is the only working way to laugh grimly at the madness of this world.'
11
06
ENZO KREFT
Change does not start with weapons, but with insights, questions, images that make people think. That is my form of resistance.

PHOTOS

01
07
SUICIDE COMMANDO
Pekkersfeesten
01
07
PINK TURNS BLUE
Pekkersfeesten
01
07
STAR INDUSTRY
Pekkersfeesten
01
07
DEAR DEER
Pekkersfeesten
01
07
THE ULTIMATE DREAMERS
Pekkersfeesten
01
07
KRANK
Pekkersfeesten
26
06
VENIN CARMIN
Live am See Meschede

ADVERTISE
IN PEEK-A-BOO

VIDEO CLIPS

12
07
CHVE
Charon
11
07
CREMATORY
Ravens Calling
10
07
HYBRYDS
I hear you calling
09
07
HA;PEOPLE 3 55
Infierno
08
07
ZARDONIC
Pure Power
07
07
PORN
The Ogre Inside
06
07
NEW MODEL ARMY
Never Arriving