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Friday 22 May 2020

Disco Devil


I heard this playing recently, I think it was an Andrew Weatherall radio show, possibly one his 6 Mix shows, and it was one of those 'stop what you're doing and enjoy the music' moments. Lee 'Scratch' Perry in full dub remix mode, full of fire and smoke, pushing the faders and the echo all over the place. Psychedelic dub, warped and twisted and stretched into new shapes. At three and half minutes the track lurches to a halt, a bell rings and everything slows right down before the reverb- heavy vocals and rhythms re- appear and it's as if the ground shifts beneath your feet. Weatherall used to say in interviews that dub was like a religious experience for him. This is the sort of thing I imagine he was referring to.

Disco Devil

Disco Devil is a remixed, dubbed out version of Max Romeo's 1976 Chase The Devil with it's famous 'I'm gonna put on an iron shirt/and chase the devil out of earth' refrain. Lee Perry recorded and produced the original with The Upsetters and the 1977 remix is credited to Lee Perry and The Full Experiences. It was sampled memorably too by The Prodigy for their Out Of Space single in 1992.


3 comments:

pyewakt said...

Ha! I believe this record was directed at Island founder Chris Blackwell who Scratch had obviously fallen out with...

FurryBootsCityBoy said...

A great track from one of my favourite albums "War Ina Babylon".

Anonymous said...

Sublime Upsetter 12. Amazing what can be done with a Teac 4 track, white rum and some collie weed.
-SRC