King Tubby
The Late Great King Tubby, 2011
I once read an interview with House of Pain’s Everlast (of all people) where he used the phrase “music as pure energy” to describe a Pink Floyd record. Though in 2014 I can’t remember a single line from “What It’s Like,” that expression pops into my head every time I hear a King Tubby dub. Arguably the forefather of modern remix culture, Tubby’s real-time reggae inversions also singlehandedly stirred a genre into existence. Dub normally dwells in the low end, but I picked “Bongo Man Dub” because it does the exact opposite – the bassline is watery, submerged, nearly hidden beneath a lyrical sax melody that comes on like captured sunlight. It wasn’t often that Tubby favored brass over bass like this, but when he did he made it count.
[audio https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14312140/Bongo%20Man%20Dub.m4a]
The Best Song You'll Hear All Day 