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Those who copped George Solar’s debut solo EP for NuNorthern Soul, 2021’s Los Rayos Del Sol, will attest to its subtly dub-flecked qualities, with a couple of the tracks clearly displaying the Ibiza-based producer’s deep love of roots reggae and dub music. Given this embrace of deep bass, space echo and dub delay, it makes perfect sense that his follow-up is not a remix EP, but rather a set of inspired dub versions of tracks from that set.
For Los Rayos in Dub, Solar personally selected the artists to provide the reworks and asked them to channel the spirit of ‘versioning’ so prevalent in Jamaican musical culture. The results are uniformly inspired, with the assembled cast delivering takes that join the dots between Solar’s colourful brand of Balearica and the kind of weighty, skeletal ‘riddims’ laid down by dub greats such as Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and King Tubby.
Fittingly, Solar’s long-term collaborator and German dub don Felix Wolter dons his now familiar Dubvisionist alias and gets things going with an inspired, dubbed-out jazz take on ‘Infrared’ in which loose-limbed, cymbal-heavy percussion, echoing electric piano chords and abstract harmonica sounds rise above a deep, dub-wise bassline.
Next, we’re treated to contrasting takes on the original EP highlight ‘Luz’. First, another regular Solar collaborator, Daniel Nielwald AKA Beach Messiah reaches for warming sub-bass, Latin influenced drums, ghostly electronics and sun-kissed jazz guitar solos on a shuffling, locked-in take, before Ken Fan – resident at the Café Del Mar, formerly home of much-missed king of sunsets Jose Padilla – takes things up a notch via a brilliant Balearic dub disco revision. Fan’s version has even more dancefloor potential – as well as extremely emotive strings and lashes of Flamenco guitar.
All round chill-out legend Chris Coco then takes us up into the hills with a gorgeous, slow-motion version of ‘UV’ marked out by lazy, languid electric guitar solos, toe-tapping trip-hop beats and plenty of dreamy, tactile and emotive pads. To round things off, Argentinian Folktronica exponent Jin Yerei (real name Federico Sanchez) takes ‘Neblina’ further into deep space via bubbly, TB-303 style bass, drifting trumpet solos, reverb-heavy sonic textures, delay-laden harmonica motifs and slow-motion South American percussion.
As with other EPs in NuNorthern Soul’s Myths of Ibiza series, Los Rayos in Dub comes with cover artwork by White Isle-based illustrator Emily McGuinness – the label’s 2022 artist in residence. Her artwork depicts mysterious local spirit ‘The Follet’ – Still to this day the expression “te Follet” (has Follet) has remained in the Ibicenco language to talk about someone who possesses a supernatural nature.
Distributed by Strikeforce 360 Media
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http://www.facebook.com/Strikeforce360
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Those who copped George Solar’s debut solo EP for NuNorthern Soul, 2021’s Los Rayos Del Sol, will attest to its subtly dub-flecked qualities, with a couple of the tracks clearly displaying the Ibiza-based producer’s deep love of roots reggae and dub music. Given this embrace of deep bass, space echo and dub delay, it makes perfect sense that his follow-up is not a remix EP, but rather a set of inspired dub versions of tracks from that set.
For Los Rayos in Dub, Solar personally selected the artists to provide the reworks and asked them to channel the spirit of ‘versioning’ so prevalent in Jamaican musical culture. The results are uniformly inspired, with the assembled cast delivering takes that join the dots between Solar’s colourful brand of Balearica and the kind of weighty, skeletal ‘riddims’ laid down by dub greats such as Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and King Tubby.
Fittingly, Solar’s long-term collaborator and German dub don Felix Wolter dons his now familiar Dubvisionist alias and gets things going with an inspired, dubbed-out jazz take on ‘Infrared’ in which loose-limbed, cymbal-heavy percussion, echoing electric piano chords and abstract harmonica sounds rise above a deep, dub-wise bassline.
Next, we’re treated to contrasting takes on the original EP highlight ‘Luz’. First, another regular Solar collaborator, Daniel Nielwald AKA Beach Messiah reaches for warming sub-bass, Latin influenced drums, ghostly electronics and sun-kissed jazz guitar solos on a shuffling, locked-in take, before Ken Fan – resident at the Café Del Mar, formerly home of much-missed king of sunsets Jose Padilla – takes things up a notch via a brilliant Balearic dub disco revision. Fan’s version has even more dancefloor potential – as well as extremely emotive strings and lashes of Flamenco guitar.
All round chill-out legend Chris Coco then takes us up into the hills with a gorgeous, slow-motion version of ‘UV’ marked out by lazy, languid electric guitar solos, toe-tapping trip-hop beats and plenty of dreamy, tactile and emotive pads. To round things off, Argentinian Folktronica exponent Jin Yerei (real name Federico Sanchez) takes ‘Neblina’ further into deep space via bubbly, TB-303 style bass, drifting trumpet solos, reverb-heavy sonic textures, delay-laden harmonica motifs and slow-motion South American percussion.
As with other EPs in NuNorthern Soul’s Myths of Ibiza series, Los Rayos in Dub comes with cover artwork by White Isle-based illustrator Emily McGuinness – the label’s 2022 artist in residence. Her artwork depicts mysterious local spirit ‘The Follet’ – Still to this day the expression “te Follet” (has Follet) has remained in the Ibicenco language to talk about someone who possesses a supernatural nature.
Distributed by Strikeforce 360 Media
http://www.instagram.com/strikeforce360/
http://www.facebook.com/Strikeforce360
http://twitter.com/STRIKEFORCE360
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