November 16, 2007

Various Artists: 'Box Of Dub 2'

'Curated by Soul Jazz – the label renowned for unearthing lost reggae'

5 / 10 If your experience of the sternum-splintering sound of dubstep has come via Skream, Plastician or Mary Anne Hobbs’ Dubstep Warz show, you might want to hesitate before delving too deep into ‘Box Of Dub 2’. Curated by Soul Jazz – the label renowned for unearthing lost reggae, soul and art-rock artefacts – it focuses on the more ‘intellectual’ side of the genre – producers like kode9, who’s written a high-falutin’ book about sonic weapons and the avant-garde. Young punks like Skream and Cotti do feature, but they contribute super-laidback tracks that play up dubstep’s debt to Jamaican soundsystems, as opposed to the more urgent grime-garage influence. Swaying in front of a 10-foot speaker stack with a Red Stripe in one hand and a joint the size of an ice-cream cone in the other, it all surely sounds amazing; in any other situation, it’s bound to come across as a bit dull.

Sam Richards

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