Roots Manuva Dub Come Save Me LP The summer is here - and this is definitely the record that will be rockin my stereo when the sun is shining hard and I'm wanting to chill from the stresses of life. Roots Manuva has taken a selection of tracks from his second LP, added in a couple of outside remixes plus a light sprinkling of new tracks and produced a wicked 10 track long player. As the LP title suggests - the vibe is totally dub dominated - with deep splurging sub bass splattering across tinkling snareshots n' cascading FX. The atmosphere is heavily relaxed with the LP stepping very cohesive because the tempo doesnt fluctuate wildly between tracks. The ten tracks are a mixture of instrumental and vocal with Roots Manuva handling all the production duties. The beats sound very organic and have that fullness of sound which fills all corners of a room - you can almost hear the valve powered desk steaming away as it churns out the claustrophobic pea souper bass sounds. I'm definitely not knowledgeable about dub reggae - but this seems like a carefully blended mix of hiphop drum elements with dub bass and FX foundations. The one undisputable fact is that Roots Manuva's voice works perfectly over this type of soundscape - its pitch flows over the beats with ease and the deepness of the delivery blends wickedly with the sub. This is doubly exampled upon 'Revolution 5' where Roots and Chali2na trade heavy baritone verses to excellent effect. Throughout the LP, vocals step with the expected high quality by effortlessly becoming thought provoking, head scratching, and grin inducing (usually all within a verse). For such a low tempo record it feels suprisingly short - it actually weighs in at over 40 minutes. This time shortening is definitely cos of the lack of flatulent fillers within the whole ten tracks. My personal favourites include the opener 'Man Fi Cool' which stomps along with powerful gusto, 'Revolution 5' which rejoins the excellent blend of Chali2na & Roots across a gorgeous REM sleep inducing beat, 'The Lynch' which uses a quality stabbed hook to drive a stake through an energetic action you might be contemplating, and lastly the best track - 'UK Warriors' which is straight out a bonafide uk classic. UK Warriors exemplify's everthing wicked about this record - it destroys woofers, wakes up Cerberus, whilst Roots and Riddla rip it . I'm not really qualified to describe the instrumental tracks - I never mentioned the dub remixes either - the best of which is the 'Witness Dub'. The only weak tracks (for me) come back to back - 'Tears' features singing which can get a bit much and definitely crosses the line into pissed bloke karaoke, whilst 'Dreamy Days' gets slightly abused and bruised by the Super Furry Animals who pretty much rip the heart out of the orginal track. In truth this dub record feels like a more complete 'long player' than the original 'Run Come Save Me' record which after prolonged listening began to lose its playability across the middle tracks. Only time will tell. Overall, this isnt merely a rehash of old material to gain some extra poundage from already successful material - cos like other similar projects its taken a new freshness through total switching around of the vibe (e.g. Massive Attack vs Mad Professor - 'No Protection'). It would be no good bothering to switch vibe if overally quality was going to suffer - thankfully consistency is easily maintained with top notch sound quality and original ideas making a thoroughly diverse and interesting record. Important note though: this definitely isnt a pre club record but strictly one for a picnic in the park or bevvy by the beach. You've been warned - an insomniacs cure - put it on prescription. Check for it to drop with a loud splash in late June 2002. - Smiffy | profile  Related Links: Big Dada Style The Big Dada Himself © ukhh.com 1999 - 2002