Written by: Dave Cantrell

OK, I gotta be straight up about this: while I’ve been a certifiable ‘fan’ of reggae and its rather sprawling family of spin-off offshoots – unsurprising when the ascent of Two-Tone coincides with your fevered run to London in 1979 (a few years before trying to move there in 1982 but that’s a whole other essay), which inevitably led to your faithful scribe rummaging fervently about the vast troves that helped influence the (wonderfully) skanking mania that was one of the most vital waves of cutting edge new pop music that one could ever hope to find oneself immersed in – I’m not convinced I have the ‘chops’ necessary to feel comfortable writing about it with sufficient authority but y’know what? Screw that. To some extent that’s the gig here at SEM or any reputable music site and in any case the writing life in just about any capacity, if it’s going to be worth the ‘paper’ it’s printed on, should by definition shred any and all precepts of ‘comfort,’ and that fact is in fact the very frisson that should, in theory anyway, drive the writing process in the first (and second and third…) place. If you’re not feeling a tad unsteady, a bit on edge while facing the tyranny of the blank page or screen you’re likely not writing, you’re more likely simply transcribing clichés.

Alright then, with that out of the way, let’s take a deep (and hopefully intrepid) dive into 35 Years From Alpha, originally released on the incomparable On-U Sound imprint in 1982 (there’s that year again) and now reissued – on both CD and, more crucially, 12″ vinyl – by, umm, On-U-Sound and believe me, I’ll do my very goddamn best to dive deep enought to do the album justice because to do it any less, considering the power and sheer depth of groove inherent here, would be, yes, a not small injustice.

Produced by certifiable legend and O-US founder Adrian Sherwood, abetted as he often was (and for quite some time) by the none-deeper talents of drummer Style Scott and the virtuoso delicacy of Bim Sherman’s vocals which isn’t to mention the ‘plenty 0thers’ that helped shape this seminal work (see below), there’s something you might call ‘casual with an (often joyous) edge’ rumbling in the midst of these proceedings. From the tromboned and, no surprise, deep-based jaunt – jahnt? – and swing of the opening title track giving way to “The Danger” with its loitering, if addictive, atmosphere of menace hanging over it like a Kingston fog, albeit one with the sun pushing through the shroud; the twanging almost down home jaw harp joy that suffuses “Head Charge” and, yeah, how often would you expect to find ‘down home’ alluded to regarding a straight up reggae/dub album? Right, pretty much never and hence the quiet brilliance on display here.

Whether it’s the seductive, undying languor of “Without A Love Like Yours,” drifting and piercing in equal measure, the way the classic dub depths of instrumental “Two From Alpha” give off the haunt of atmospherics to goddamn nearly die for, Headley’s alto sax with Rico’s trombone speaking the language of the form, straight up, or the original closing track (there are two bonus tracks, both killer), an instrumental a-blush with a mood that, to this listener, twines together yearning with utter contentment, two emotions not often found huddling together in the same song but here come across like nothing less than conjoined twins.

While all these artists have sadly passed, their sound continues to echo and impact with a timeless tremble that no age or era should be without. Yeah, we’re all facing some seriously perilous times at the moment but in a sense it has been forever thus so it has to be said that it’s not just nice but, we feel, indispensibly necessary to have this reissued masterpiece in our midst. May it, in however subliminal a way, help us eventually heal.

Personnel:

Deadly Headly – alto saxophone

Style Scott – drums

Bim Sherman – vocals on tracks 2/4/5

Nick ‘Houmous Mouse’ Plytas – keyboards on tracks 1/4/6

Rico – trombone on tracks 1/6

Lizard – bass on tracks 1/2/4/6/7/9

‘Crucial’ Tony – guitar on tracks 4/7/10

Roots Radics – rhythm section on track 3

Eskimo Fox – drums of track 4

Bonjo I – percussion on tracks 2/8

Mr. Magoo –  percussion on track 4

George Oban – bass on track 5